Deconstruction Pros Cherry-Picking Mueller Airport

AUSTIN-The redevelopment of Robert Mueller Municipal Airport into a mix of homes, apartments, office buildings and retail centers will be Austin’s biggest real estate project. To help make way for the redevelopment, the city is in its biggest deconstruction project–the teardown of the former airport’s 190,400-sf terminal.

“It’s a reuse program,” Nonnie Nutting, interim property manager for the Mueller property, tells GlobeSt.com. “It keeps materials from landfills.”

Among the equipment and materials salvaged for resale are air conditioning chillers, mechanical equipment structural iron, roofing, sheet metal, windows, fixtures, windows, cabinetry, magazine racks and railings. Even the 390-foot long concourse and the two-story, 22,000-sf rotunda, where the American Airlines’ gates were, are being taken apart carefully for resale. The deconstruction companies estimate those sections could be bought for 60% of what it would cost to build similar structures. The contractors say that the rotunda and concourse would be suitable for rebuilding as warehouses or other commercial or industrial applications.