RDU airport wants to keep travelers dry outside its main terminal. It won’t be cheap.
.JPG "The canopy in front of Terminal 2 at Raleigh-Durham International Airport covers the sidewalk and only about half the width of a car parked at the curb. RDU is considering whether to build a new canopy that covers the entire pick-up and drop-off zones.")
Dropping someone off at Raleigh-Durham International Airport’s Terminal 2 when it’s raining often means passengers and their luggage get wet.
The RDU Airport Authority board will need to decide soon whether it’s worth tens of millions of dollars to build a canopy that keeps everyone dry.
RDU plans to expand Terminal 2 to keep up with growing demand for air travel in the Triangle. The building will grow to provide space for new ticketing counters, baggage carousels and security checkpoints, as well as a larger customs area for arriving international passengers.
The construction provides an opportunity to put a roof over the drop-off zone on the terminal’s upper level. The canopy that’s there now covers the sidewalk and about half the width of a car parked snug to the curb, says Jaymes Carter, RDU’s vice president for buildings.
“There’s just enough to cover the passenger who’s getting out of the car, not necessarily the driver,” Carter told board members Thursday. “I don’t know how many times I’ve been at the terminal where the person driving the car doesn’t get out of the car to give somebody a hug as they go to the curb.”
And most cars don’t get close to the curb, as passengers and their luggage are unloaded in the second or third lane from the building.
Carter presented several options to the board, ranging from leaving the existing canopy in place to building a new 140-foot-wide structure that would cover not only the entire drop-off zone but also the lower-level roadway where some arriving passengers catch buses.
The estimated cost, Carter said, ranges from zero for doing nothing to as much as $90 million, depending on the design and materials used in the full canopy. A middle option would be to extend the current canopy another 10 feet over the roadway without building supports, at an estimated cost of about $14 million.
One factor to consider, Carter said, is that RDU will be required by federal law to provide a five-foot aisle between traffic and the curb for anyone with disabilities, the entire length of the building. That means the current canopy will not likely reach even the first lane of cars.
Michael Landguth, RDU’s president and CEO, told the board that airports across the country are providing cover to passengers as they arrive and depart.
“That’s the level of service people are expecting when they drive to the airport,” Landguth said. “You get out of the vehicle, hug your loved ones, get their luggage out in a reasonable time, and you don’t have to fight the elements to do that.”
Airport Authority board will have to decide soon
The board didn’t make a decision Thursday, though Bill Sandifer, RDU’s chief development officer, said he’d like some direction on the canopy in the next month or two. RDU hopes to finish design work and begin construction on Terminal 2 in the spring of 2025, Sandifer said.
Board members seemed receptive to a canopy.
“We obviously have a lot of things to build, none of them easy, simple or inexpensive,” said Ellis Hankins, the board chair. “But we have to get people out of the rain and away from the ice.”
David Kushner, who represents Wake County on the board, said the airport should keep in mind that whatever it decides to do at Terminal 2 it should also do at the smaller Terminal 1.
“You don’t need a world-class experience in Terminal 2 and have a third-world experience in Terminal 1,” Kushner said. “Not that that’s what you have. But you don’t want to go down the road where the difference between the two becomes more and more extreme over time.”
Cost will be a consideration. RDU has about $3 billion worth of construction projects planned over the next decade, including building a new runway and taxiways, tripling the size of its largest remote parking lot and expanding both terminals.
As it stands now, RDU thinks it can cover about $2.6 billion of that, through a combination of government grants, income from airport operations and borrowing, said Ron Kapocius, the airport’s chief financial officer. Building the full canopy could add $90 million to what now appears like a $384 million deficit, Kapocius said.
But he and Landguth noted that it’s early, and that RDU has several options for stretching its budget, including delaying some of the construction, raising fees for airlines and customers, and cutting costs by using cheaper designs and materials in some places.
Kapocius said he’s not worried.
“I sleep very comfortably at night,” he told board members. “RDU is in a very strong financial position. We’re the envy of many other CFOs out there.”
