$1B Airport Project Delayed

DULLES, VA-Plans for a new $1 billion concourse at Washington Dulles International Airport–which occupies 11,000 acres straddling Loudoun and Fairfax counties–remain on hold nearly a year after the September 11 attacks forced the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority to rethink its development plans. Concourse C was originally conceived of as part of the aviation organization’s $3.4 billion Capital Construction Program to bring new facilities to the airport between the years 2000 and 2006.

Plans for Concourse C remain in the beginning stages, with no permanent design in place or developers on board as of yet. MWAA officials created the concept of the new concourse as a replacement for the existing concourses C and D, which were constructed in the 1980s as temporary facilities.

The three-level midfield structure will provide approximately 1.8 million sf of space for 44 airline gates, office areas, retail shops, and eateries. There will also be airline clubs, a ramp control tower and underground train stations. Upon completion, Concourse C will resemble Dulles’s four-year-old Concourse B, which is slated for expansion.

After the terrorist attack-induced changes in the travel industry, the project was forced to take a backseat to other more crucial developments. “We had to take another look at our budget and reprioritize,” MWAA spokesperson Tom Sullivan tells GlobeSt.com. “We decided to move ahead with our capacity projects, and the replacement projects had to be re-timed.” Sullivan says MWAA officials have monthly meetings where construction projects are discussed, but he says it remains unknown when the Concourse C plan will make it back to the table for consideration. However, Sullivan assures, “it is still in our plans.”