Airport solicits bids to raze, rebuild South parking deck

Project will cost many millions, take decade to complete.

Hartsfield-Jackson Inter- national Airport is seeking a contractor to demolish and rebuild the South park- ing deck next to the domes- tic terminal.

The City of Atlanta, which owns and operates the air- port, has issued a request for proposals seeking a con- struction firm for the reconstruction and replacement of the South parking deck.

The city wants the pro- posals by May 24.

The plan to tear down and rebuild the parking decks is one of the airport’s largest and most disruptive projects detailed in its more than $11 billion master plan, and is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take a decade to complete.

Officials have said when the project is finished, the airport will have new decks to last perhaps half a century and improve airport access.

The contracting process underway is to find a com- pany to demolish the South domestic terminal parking deck, Delta Dash office and South parking office, and to construct replacement South parking decks.

The domestic and international terminal parking decks reach capacity during busy periods.

A structural engineer rec- ommended the aging parking decks be replaced because they are nearing the end of their useful life. The South parking deck is more than 40 years old.

The Atlanta airport has already started building a new seven-level South parking deck on the site of the old South economy lot, which closed last October. The new deck will be used to replace lost parking slots when the deck next to the terminal is torn down.

The airport in 2021 opened the ATL West deck and ATL Select park-ride lot, but neither of those options is as convenient to travelers as the decks next to the terminal.

The airport in the past couple of years closed portions of the parking decks in phases, to shore them up in preparation for them to be partially used during the yearslong project to tear down and replace the aging parking decks in stages.