Completion 1: Midway Airport Redevelopment
Cost: $793 million

It was clear by the mid-1990s that the increasingly decrepit Midway Airport in Chicago needed redevelopment.

Passenger traffic, surging in the years immediately before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had taken a toll on the airport since it originally opened in 1926.

The redevelopment began in 1997, and the centerpiece is the 900,000-sq.-ft. terminal across Cicero Avenue from the old one. The terminal is connected to the gates by a 270-ft.-long, 60-ft.-wide glass and steel pedestrian bridge across the street.

The project boasts other features as well. A 3,000-vehicle parking garage - the first covered parking in Midway history - stands just to the east of the terminal. A new multilevel roadway system whisks incoming and outgoing airport traffic away from local traffic.

Accommodating an Airport

A top issue was accommodating the continuing operation of Midway, and phasing was critical.

The original terminal had 29 gates, while the new terminal has 41. Each existing gate had to stay operational throughout construction.

Each of the new gates was required to accommodate 737s, something that was not the case at the old Midway.

The baggage and check-in were moved to the east side of Cicero. Though the pedestrian bridge solved the problem of moving passengers from terminal to gates, the hurdle of sending luggage to the airplanes and back again was something else.

The solution was to locate a luggage room in the basement of the terminal, where baggage can be sorted. The room is connected to a baggage tunnel that runs beneath Cicero, allowing luggage to be transported in motorized carts from the baggage sorting area to the terminal side to the planes waiting on the runway side.

Because of the tunnel, utilities could no longer be situated in the Cicero right-of-way.

Another hurdle was the fact that most traffic into Midway comes from the north along Cicero's western-most lanes, but the new terminal is situation on the road's east side.

That required moving southbound traffic across the northbound lanes. A ramp that exits southbound Cicero on the right-hand side climbs over the northbound lanes to the terminal. The ramp then passes the front of the terminal building, with options to go to the upper level for departures or the lower level for arrivals.

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