Easing Air Travel
Springfield-Branson National Airport's new, snazzy, super-impressive terminal is sprucing up Springfield’s road to the sky and leaving room for future growth.
From a distance, the new terminal at Springfield-Branson National Airport is impressive, a graceful structure appropriate for the pages of Flying magazine. It also looks big—a facility capable of handling the more than one million air travelers projected to pass through the airport annually by 2010.
Close up, it’s just as impressive as it appears from a distance. It’s obvious the designers have succeeded in creating an up-to-date terminal that blends well with the woods and fields surrounding airport property. Not only does it fit right into its location, the building materials also match the beauty of the Ozarks. Some of the exterior is made of stone that looks like it might have come straight from a bluff overlooking the James River.
Scheduled to open May 6, the $117 million 275,000-square-foot state-of-the-art terminal lies to the southwest of the old building on property already owned by the airport. Airport Boulevard, a new road off Chestnut Expressway, was built to access the airport. After May 5, the old access via Kearney Street will no longer be used.
The New Bells and Whistles
Besides being attractive and functional, the new terminal will also provide greater safety and ease of access for travelers in a hurry. “We have two or three accidents each month on the stairs and escalators in the old building,” says Kent Boyd, the marketing and communications coordinator for Springfield-Branson National Airport. “In the new terminal, everything is on one level. A traveler will come through the front door, pass through ticketing and security, then onto the main concourse.”
What You NEED to Know about the New Airport Terminal• A rotating exhibit of local artists’ work is on display near baggage claim. |
It will be easier to pick up friends and family with the cell phone lot. Find their arrival time on a display in the free parking lot. Passengers can call their rides when they reach baggage claim, letting them know it’s time to leave the free cell phone lot and drive to the pick-up area.
Another perk for rushed travelers: In addition to wireless Internet service, each seat in the waiting areas is equipped with an electrical outlet, so phones and laptops can be charging while a passenger awaits a flight. And also convenient during long (or short) waits: two food and two retail outlets, one of each before security and one of each after security. The dining options, which will not be sit-down restaurants, were still under negotiations at press time. But the two Paradies Shops retail stores, selling both books and souvenirs, will be themed: one after Route 66 and the other after CNBC.
Energy-efficiency was a concern during construction. The new terminal has excellent insulation, high-efficiency air conditioners that use ozone-friendly air chillers and heaters that use clean-burning natural gas.
In With the New
Before this new terminal project began, the existing terminal at Springfield-Branson National Airport had been in use since early 1964 (although it had been added onto and remodeled at least six times since then). “And that’s one reason why we needed a new terminal,” Boyd says. “Much of the building currently in use consists of a core structure that is nearly 50 years old, and a lot of maintenance is required.”
Other considerations also forced airport leadership to look for solutions. By 2003, Branson had become a nationally recognized tourist attraction, this area’s population was growing, and security requirements following 9/11 were proving to be very demanding. Cincinnati-based PB Aviation, Inc. performed a cost-benefit analysis, laying out the costs in building a new terminal as opposed to renovating and shuffling space. That report studied area growth, present and future parking needs, future space for carriers and security mandated by TSA. Those needs, together with the maintenance issues for an aging building and the fact that the existing terminal was landlocked, made a new terminal the logical option.
Growth forced the construction of each of the three terminals before the current project. Although passenger numbers have declined in recent months, according to the airport website, overall growth in passenger volume has increased an average of 2 to 3 percent per year.
Ninety-seven million dollars of the cost for the new terminal will be paid with revenue bonds issued by the airport. Twenty million dollars will come from a fund administered by the FAA, collected from fees paid by every airport across the country, and used to help airports meet FAA requirements. Construction began in June 2006. General contractors for the building are Walton Construction Co., and the Florida-based aviation architects RS&H handled the design work.
The Ozarks Look
“Ozarks unique” is how Martin Wander, AIA, lead designer and vice president of aviation architect for RS&H describes the interior of the building. “The idea was to create a facility that uses the natural beauty of the Ozarks,” he says.
The theme for the interior is “grass, water, and river rock.” Most of the carpeting is a blend of all three: soft greens, blues and sandy browns. But the space in front of security will stop traffic. “An actual topographical map was used to create the image of White River gorge which is etched into the terrazzo,” Wander says.
Windows between security and the lobby are also one of a kind. They showcase woods and streams—not in stained glass, but in actual paintings within the glass that were created by German artist Reiner John. Ceramic tile in the walls holds fish and tree designs created by Franz Mayer, another German artist who is internationally known for his vibrant designs of plants and animals.
Lots of floor-to-ceiling glass gives an expansive view of the fields and woods surrounding the airport’s 3,500 acres. Sky blue, soft gray and muted greens are highlighted by the natural lighting. Blues and greens in the carpet resemble calm water on 417-land lakes. The pathway from ticketing back to the gates curves gently; Wander describes it as “emulating the flow of the many streams here in southwest Missouri.”
Additionally, the airport is working with the Springfield Regional Arts Council on a rotating exhibit of local artists’ work that will be displayed near baggage claim in the terminal.
The Shape of Things to Come
The shape of the new building is a modified T and solves a logistical problem airport personnel have been dealing with for several years. Gary Cyr, aviation director at the airport, explains: “Basically what we’ve got with the old building is a 1,000-foot-long terminal that can only be loaded on one side.” That creates a situation, he says, where several planes are trying to load and get into the air early in the morning and there simply isn’t room. One arm of the new building will remedy that situation, offering 10 gates initially, with room for expansion to 60.
Initially there will be one concourse, with room for more, radiating out from the central area like spokes on a wheel, all on the same level. In the new terminal, distance between ticket counters and baggage claim will be less than 100 feet, and access to rental car lots will be a cinch.
Everything about the new terminal is bigger: more room for TSA-mandated security checkpoints, a bigger passenger waiting area, more car rental room, and a public parking area that provides 1,826 spaces.
Springfield's Air-Travel History
The roots that lead to Springfield-Branson National Airport’s recent growth tap 92 years into the past. In the fall of 1916, a time when folks came from miles around to see an “aeroplane” on the ground. The first plane ever to land in Greene County flew into Springfield. The airport was a dirt track and a windsock, bounded by a cornfield and a cow pasture. The location, according to the Springfield-Branson National Airport’s website, was the old fairgrounds near Phelps Grove Park.
That was the beginning of an air service that has moved three times, been expanded and renovated on at least six different occasions, and came close to shutting down during the Great Depression.There is no record of a terminal building for the Springfield airport in the period immediately following that first flight in 1916, but Bill Reser, who served on the airport board for several years beginning in the mid-1980s, recalled recently: “The first terminal at the present location was an old white two-story farmhouse that was used until the mid-‘40s. It was torn down when construction began on the present terminal in 1961.”
Reser believed that old farmhouse was serving as a terminal when commercial air service first came to Springfield in 1929. According to the airport website, American Airlines, Transcontinental and Western all began service here that year. But the timing was bad. The stock market crash and Great Depression followed. Nobody had money to buy plane tickets. Funding for airport improvements dried up. Commercial air service disappeared from Springfield in 1932.
WWII helped bring a second terminal building to Springfield. Planeloads of wounded servicemen were sent to O’Reilly General Army Hospital. But the short, unpaved runways at the Springfield-Greene County Airport proved inadequate for the large military transports. The U.S. Army brought in men and equipment to improve the runways. It became obvious to Greene County and Springfield city leaders that something had to be done. So construction began on a new airport at the present location. That facility opened in 1948.
Growth in the Springfield-Branson area, and new technology for air traffic communications and control pushed construction of another new building, which was completed in early 1964. That basic structure—added onto and remodeled on at least six different occasions—comprises the terminal building in use at present.
