urbanSTL

Grover wrote:Cool. Hopefully I'll get to see the lights some day. I'm very rarely anywhere other than the East Terminal flying Southwest these days.

You can actually see them while you are taking off/landing or taxing by the main terminal. It is pretty cool seeing it from the plane!

Are these lights on the green roof? Inside or outside?

MidcoastSTL wrote:Are these lights on the green roof? Inside or outside?

In the picture below, the lights are installed(transluent too?) the skinny triangular windows.


You you actually see it inside and outside.

Airport Announcement Today
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Later today, Lambert Airport will announce the details of the most extensive renovation of its terminal ever. This work will be the second phase of the Airport Experience Program.

Beginning this fall, the airport will spend about 2 years and $50 million improving passenger services and airport operations in Lambert’s Terminal 1 (designed by Minoru Yamasaki in 1956), one of the most familiar buildings in St. Louis. The most visible elements of the changes will be inside in the A and C concourses, which serve a majority of Lambert’s airlines. Those areas will be realigned, repainted, re-floored, re-ceilinged, re-signed, and re-lit. Combined with earlier work on the terminal’s domes and new signage throughout the airport area, our landmark terminal, currently starring in a major movie, should look spectacular.

The construction required will occupy 150 workers for almost 400,000 hours.

Watch for the announcement.


http://www.mayorslay.com/desk/display.asp?deskID=1435

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/s ... enDocument

Lambert to consolidate two little-used concourses
By Tim O'Neil
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
02/18/2010

ST. LOUIS -- Lambert-St,. Louis International Airport will close two little-used concourses in the Main Terminal and renovate the other two in a $50 million plan announced today.
....
Airport director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge made the announcement in the A Concourse, which is one of the two that the airport will continue using. The other one is the big C Concourse.

She said the airport will move remaining service from the B Concourse, the original one that runs from the terminal out to the runways, and the D Concourse that splits away from the C Concourse to the east of the Main Terminal. The carriers now using B and D will be using gates along the C Concourse.

Now that D will be completely disused, I give it 3 years before it's torn down altogether.

Great to see the main terminal get some TLC. It was a ground-breaking design when built, and as such is one of the most architecturally important buildings in St. Louis, right up there with the Wainwright Bldg.

ben1040 wrote:Now that D will be completely disused, I give it 3 years before it's torn down altogether.

Wouldn't it make more sense to keep it in case Lambert somehow lands a big hub or something in the future? It would be much easier to gut and remodel B and D as needed on short notice if they were just walled-off and left standing.

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Wouldn't it make more sense to keep it in case Lambert somehow lands a big hub or something in the future? It would be much easier to gut and remodel B and D as needed on short notice if they were just walled-off and left standing.[/quote]

This makes SO much more sense than tearing down B and D, especially with the Air China possibility. Once everything is moved to C, I think we should gut the innards of B/D so that they're ready to be modernized if we're rehubbed.

Or should we just go ahead and tear down B and D? Then we would have a place to build new concourses someday -- when a new generation of forward thinkers comes along.

New concourses in other cities have very high ceilings and are a lot wider than Lambert's current concourses to accommodate more shopping and restaurants. The terminal in Detroit has a light rail style people mover on top of the restaurants and shops inside the concourse overlooking the walkway.

Here is a thought -- put the entire current main terminal inside security with very long concourses going straight out the East end (in place of D) and the West End (future). Then include a fast rail style indoor people mover that goes the entire length on a level overlooking the main floor like Detroit's rail, including going right thorough the current main terminal. The current main terminal would then be the central point inside security for restaurants, shops, security screening, etc.

Since the Guard is leaving and the I-70 access to the airport via the interchange next to the Marriott is being eliminated, the airport service road could someday be re-routed closer to I-70, leaving room South and West of the current main terminal for a new Ticketing building with new drop off and pick-up. And how about making it below grade with a green roof while we're dreaming.

Gary Kreie wrote:Since the Guard is leaving and the I-70 access to the airport via the interchange next to the Marriott is being eliminated, the airport service road could someday be re-routed closer to I-70, leaving room South and West of the current main terminal for a new Ticketing building with new drop off and pick-up. And how about making it below grade with a green roof while we're dreaming.

Are there plans to reconfigure the I-70/Natural Bridge/Air Flight Dr. interchange? If so, where can we find more details about it?

On Congressman Lacy Clay's web page, he shows this as one of the FY 2010 Member-Sponsored Project Funding Requests:

Project: Natural Bridge Avenue (MO Route 115) Connection Planning, Engineering & Environmental Project Recipient (If funded by the Appropriations Committee): City of St. Ann (10405 St. Charles Rock Rd., St Ann, MO 63064)
Purpose: This project will provide companion funding to complete the necessary engineering, planning and environmental work for a transportation project that will provide a five lane “connection” from the newly designated “Western Entrance” of Lambert St. Louis International Airport at the intersection of Cypress Rd. and US Interstate 70 to the airport proper as well as ancillary uses adjacent to the airport complex. This connection will mitigate congestion at the current exit for traffic coming from west on Interstate 70. The project will also serve as a catalyst for economic development opportunities within the area by directly linking the Cypress Rd.\US Interstate 70 Interchange to the airport complex. And this project will serve to compliment the new traffic pattern designed to better serve in-bound and out-bound road congestion for St. Louis International Airport. Freight traffic can be redirected off HWY 70 into a newly extended Natural Bridge allowing for better flow into the airport complex thereby lessening vehicle load from HWY 70.

Has that money actually been allocated already, or is it still in limbo? All I can tell from Clay's website is that the House passed a bill including funding for this. Did it pass in the final version with the Senate too?

what ever happened to the glass canopy plan for the main terminal arriving/departing drive up area?

Moorlander - I forget where I read this, but the glass canopy got scrapped when they downsized the plan from $105M to $70M. I believe that Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegee said that they would consider reinstating the scrapped parts of the plan as this project is worked on.

USA 3000 already flies to Ft. Myers Thursdays and Fridays. I'm flying them on 3/25. I fly to Ft. Myers 2x/yr and usually fly them.

I flew USA3000 back from St Pete once. It is the airline of sunburned hoosiers for sure.

My parents live in Southwest Florida and have been flying USA 3000 to St. Louis a few times a year for the past few years. They like it quite a bit - the flight attendants even remember them by name now. I don't know about "sunburned hoosiers," but if you're flying to Florida almost any time of the year, you have to expect some tourists on the plane.

Flew out of Concourse A on Wednesday morning and all I could think to myself is that they couldn't close concourse B quick enough for a lot of travelers. TSA had a security line open for Concourse B without a single soul going through while Concourse A security lines had been absolutely brutal that morning for a lot of travellers (You can throw tomatoes at me for being one of those obnoxious business travellers who take full advantage of their upgrades at every available chance including the seperate First Class and Airline Employees security line - it buys me an extra half hour in the morning with my kids before leaving).

While I'm saddened that the best kept secret of Lambert is going to be useless in a few months, I'm glad I'll get to use it one more time this weekend. Sure will miss it, but it is time to consolidate. Still hoping the Air China deal might bring back an Ozark/TW-like operation though.