For now, July is the start date for the Jacksonville Aviation Authority to launch construction of Concourse B at Jacksonville International Airport.
JAA CEO Mark VanLoh told authority board members Jan. 22 that final drawings were filed with the Jacksonville Building Inspection Division.
He said staff continues to work with the Federal Aviation Administration on the final approval of an environmental assessment.
“All construction and trade packages for the concourse have been bid, we’ve received the prices and the contractors are preparing the guaranteed maximum price,” VanLoh said.
JAA Director of External Affairs Michael Stewart said after the meeting that those prices will be shared when the authority starts to negotiate a guaranteed price.
Balfour Beatty Construction LLC of Orlando is the construction manager at risk for the work on the three-level, 186,733-square-foot project at 2400 Yankee Clipper Drive.
In that role, Balfour Beatty oversees the project from design to construction completion with a guaranteed maximum price.
Jacobs Engineering is the leading design engineer and Jacksonville-based RS&H Inc. is the subcontractor for the architectural portion.
The estimated $300 million Concourse B was expected to start construction in 2023 and then revised to the summer of 2024 for completion by the end of 2026.
The city is reviewing a building permit application for a $200 million construction project to expand the North Jacksonville airport with the new six-gate concourse.
The airport has one main terminal with two concourses totaling 20 gates, comprising 10 each for Concourse A and Concourse C.
Concourse B is designed for six gates and can add another two to four gates when needed.
The first Concourse B was demolished in 2009 after Concourses A and C were completed in 2008.
When JAA opened Concourses A and C in 2008, it anticipated adding Concourse B in 2014-15.
That’s because the FAA recommends that airports prepare for expansion when they reach about 65% of terminal capacity, which happened at JAA in 2008.
Then came the Great Recession in 2008-09.
By 2018, JAA returned to 2007 traffic levels and resumed plans for Concourse B.
At that time, JAA was not required to perform an environmental assessment because the new concourse was the same footprint as the former Concourse B.
The 2020 pandemic created another delay, but by last year, JAA realized the industry had recovered and resumed designing Concourse B.
But then, the FAA required a new environmental assessment, which began at the start of 2023 and was expected to take up to a year to complete.
In June-July, the FAA also realized the preliminary concourse design conflicted with two radar arrays of the radar system on the airfield, which led to a pause in the environmental assessment.
Stewart said Jan. 22 the JAA is awaiting the administration restarting the assessment, after which it has about five months to complete it.
He said in December the authority was working to put both studies on parallel tracks and JAA meets regularly with the FAA.
“We can request the permit review and probably order everything we need in the next few weeks or months, but we can’t put a shovel in the ground until they complete the environmental assessment,” he said.
The JAA board voted March 27, 2023, to ratify contracts with Balfour Beatty Construction LLC to purchase steel for the Concourse B project.
The contracts comprise a $24.57 million steel package to build Concourse B and a $2.6 million contract for the third phase of security checkpoint renovations at the airport.
Stewart said JAA didn’t order the steel because of the delays and did not want to be storing the material.
Stewart said Phase 1 – the new checkpoint area – is substantially complete. All nine screening machines are in place, with six operational. All should be complete in six to eight weeks.
Phase 2 is the bypass taxiway for aircraft. For now, planes have been parking in the area where Concourse B will be built, and that will have to change for construction.
Phase 3 is the construction of Concourse B.
Stewart said those two phases will take place in tandem.
VanLoh said in May that costs for Concourse B had risen to about $300 million.
In 2021, JAA estimated the project could be $272 million to $275 million.
JAA anticipates using $300 million in debt financing for Concourse B.
It expects to use about $175 million in passenger facility charges to repay the debt over time, according to a JAA committee report.