The Salt Lake City International Airport recently completed its first major phase. This $4 billion project is being built in phases, and the second phase will be finished in 2024. The first phase unveiled the first completed terminal, parking garage, Gateway Center, Concourse A-west and Concourse B.
The New SLC Airport is designed to accommodate 26 million passengers and will replace the five existing concourses with two linear concourses – the North Concourse and South Concourse. These parallel
concourses will be connected via a passenger tunnel.
Geneva Rock was involved in the concrete paving and construction of the terminal and sections of the two concourses. Over the last four years, Geneva Rock has placed:
• Over 80,000 cubic yards of Lean Concrete Pavement, six-inch thick
• Over 230,000 cubic yards of Portland Cement Concrete Pavement (PCCP), 16-inches thick
• This colossal project required $46 million of concrete paving in the first phase alone.
Geneva Rock completed a total area of 7,614,000 square feet — approximately 132 football fields in size.
The on-site project crews, drivers, and materials teams all played an important role in the quality work that came together on this massive project.
The Geneva Rock concrete paving team was involved with multiple pieces within the first phase of the project. Our crews navigated a maze of complex phasing which allowed them to work on paving and construction simultaneously.
Cody Preston, area manager at Geneva Rock, oversaw concrete paving at the Salt Lake Airport.
“I am thrilled with the great workmanship and management of our team members to provide a high-quality product on such a high-profile project. We had very little re-work required because of the quality of work our crews did,” said Preston.
The greatest challenge was the tight schedule due to the requirements of the various airlines. The airlines’ needs dictated the airport’s ability to close only a certain number gates at a time for redevelopment. The schedule was also firm with very little room for error or delay.
COVID-19 had a major impact on the project timelines. Airlines were shut down and their capacity decreased suddenly and dramatically at the outset of the pandemic.
As a result, the airport opened access to redevelop gates and areas that crews would not have had access to until 2021. The construction team took advantage of the opportunity and accelerated deadlines forward at least a year.
The Geneva Rock team accelerated their paving, aggressively finishing their contracts ahead of schedule. With the work completed early, following phases were able to start sooner than planned and the overall airport redevelopment project, originally slated to be completed in 2025, will finish ahead of schedule in 2024. ‘
We appreciate the partners we have collaborated with on this once-in-a-lifetime job. Geneva Rock worked as a subcontractor for Ames Construction under the Okland-Austin joint venture on the North Concourse and the Holder-Big D joint venture on the South Concourse and Terminal construction.
The quality and efficiency of our work was a pleasant surprise to the project’s partners.
“Many of the JV partners were concerned that we could not complete these projects on time, yet we outperformed and exceeded their timelines while maintaining our quality,” said Cody Preston.