KCRag Forum

Foundation Grade Beams going in.

St. Louis is looking at a multi-county TDD to fund improvements of their airport. The 3-4 county tax would raise $80-100million annually to use at the airport. This sort of city/regional funding is the only way the average city is going to get something better then what we are getting.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/met ... e-breaking

normalthings wrote: ↑Wed Jan 01, 2020 3:03 am St. Louis is looking at a multi-county TDD to fund improvements of their airport. The 3-4 county tax would raise $80-100million annually to use at the airport. This sort of city/regional funding is the only way the average city is going to get something better then what we are getting.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/met ... e-breaking

This seems like an odd idea. None of these counties were interested in doing anything with Lambert until the privatization talks started. Then they seemingly formed their own group to explore a regional take over of the airport, but they left the City of St. Louis out of the discussion, which I don't think is a wise choice. The City has owned the Airport for some time and while the Counties would buy it, the City should still have some involvement since the City is part of the region too. At least they admit they're going to make a pitch to the City, but they should've made the pitch already.

While everyone talks about a fragmented region, this is another example since it leaves the City out of the mix (who by the way has more people living in it than Jefferson County (302,000 vs 223,000) and Franklin County (302,000 vs 103,000). It's an absurd idea in my opinion. Either keep the City involved or drop the talk.

The St. Louis Airport is way overbuilt since TWA fizzled out a while ago. The airport could really afford to lose half of its size. The debt remains sky high due to the unused runway that obliterated half of a suburb. That runway was built to serve a large influx in 747 traffic that never came. Now it's used for the occasional Air Force One landing or if large cargo planes arrive.

The St. Louis Airport is really a mess all the way around. Having known knowledge on some of the Privatization proposals, even those wouldn't have worked because St. Louis just doesn't seem to need to be a hub anymore especially as KC, Nashville, and Chicago grow their airports. All are 4-5 hours away and while that's not ideal, why have a true international flight leave St. Louis when you can go a few hours to the other cities and get to real international flights? We will see how this plays out. The sale of the airport would only eliminate City backed debt on Lambert and take care of a little of St. Louis City's roughly $2.4 Billion in debt that we have.

This sort of city/regional funding is the only way the average city is going to get something better then what we are getting.

Regarding this comment, I don't think this type of funding would help us at all. St. Louis just isn't a true destination/hub City anymore. The region can pour billions into the airport and it would only end up being a glorified Midamerica Airport in Belleville. While Midamerica is a true waste of money and certainly dead, Lambert at least has traffic to make it remain relevant. You're not going to run into huge crowds so whatever upgrades the regional group has in store, they better include making St. Louis a bit of a hub again instead of relying mostly on Southwest to deliver ridership numbers. American, United, Delta, Cape Air, and the others don't have enough flights of St. Louis to equal Southwest's numbers, or at least that's what I've been told. If Southwest were to cut back on flights in St. Louis, it would be a disaster.

I applaud Kansas City for working hard on getting a new terminal built. From what I hear, it was needed. As for St. Louis, my hometown, they need to calm it with these Airport talks. It's not like they'll get us anywhere.

We have to get our airport out of KCMO's sole control. It's not fair to anybody.

Any idea yet what the 1% for art is going to buy? Can the fountains be financed by that? Please no more "art" for the median in the road coming in. Visitors do not know what to make of the billboard armatures made into fountains.

I feel like some of it will go for the garage facade.

KCPowercat wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2020 3:48 pm I feel like some of it will go for the garage facade.

This is correct.

https://compasskc.kcmo.org/EnerGov_Prod ... ttachments


A design narrative, powerpoint, and development plan were uploaded in November to Compass. The terminal drawings are of a high enough quality for one to count the number of chairs at each gate.

A few sample configurations that I counted:

South Half of Far Concourse: 275 seats for 2 gates (350 passengers), 98 seats for 1 gate (175 passengers)

International Area: 233 seats for 1 gate (175 - 370 passengers)

Yeah I've went down various rabbit goles of that design plan

normalthings wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 11:31 pm A few sample configurations that I counted:

South Half of Far Concourse: 275 seats for 2 gates (350 passengers), 98 seats for 1 gate (175 passengers)

International Area: 233 seats for 1 gate (175 - 370 passengers)

With the number of people who stand and the number that try to show up last minute, that's realistic numbers

Whew! Glad we got validation.

KCPowercat wrote: ↑Thu Jan 09, 2020 9:51 am Whew! Glad we got validation.

Apparently you've missed the point of posting on a Discussion Board

Here are some interesting things showing some measurements for the drop-off/pick up area. these are public just hard to find. These areas are going to be very open with their higher ceilings and wide widths.

Good, departure over arrival decks along garage the best method methinks.

Chris Stritzel wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:13 pm Here are some interesting things showing some measurements for the drop-off/pick up area. these are public just hard to find. These areas are going to be very open with their higher ceilings and wide widths.

The new terminal entryway will be 40' but slopes down towards the back. The current KCI terminals are probably somewhere around 30-35 feet. The 35 gate new terminal that just opened in NOLA has ceilings up to 70 to 80 feet for comparison.





even their hold rooms have much taller ceilings

New MSY is taller because they have 3 levels. It's kind of weird. I assume they did it due to less area to work with than even we have.

normalthings wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:29 pm
The new terminal entryway will be 40' but slopes down towards the back. The current KCI terminals are probably somewhere around 30-35 feet. The 35 gate new terminal that just opened in NOLA has ceilings up to 70 to 80 feet for comparison...

...even their hold rooms have much taller ceilings

N’orleans can keep their oversized, surely overpriced, and Pelli Clarke Pelli designed junque. The new KC airport terminal is pretty good in my opinion. The 40FT ceilings here are a good height.

Chris Stritzel wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2020 3:25 am

normalthings wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:29 pm
The new terminal entryway will be 40' but slopes down towards the back. The current KCI terminals are probably somewhere around 30-35 feet. The 35 gate new terminal that just opened in NOLA has ceilings up to 70 to 80 feet for comparison...

...even their hold rooms have much taller ceilings

N’orleans can keep their oversized, surely overpriced, and Pelli Clarke Pelli designed junque. The new KC airport terminal is pretty good in my opinion. The 40FT ceilings here are a good height.

Agreed. Small time and as generic and underwhelming as possible is the way to go.

Chris Stritzel wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2020 3:25 am

normalthings wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:29 pm
The new terminal entryway will be 40' but slopes down towards the back. The current KCI terminals are probably somewhere around 30-35 feet. The 35 gate new terminal that just opened in NOLA has ceilings up to 70 to 80 feet for comparison...

...even their hold rooms have much taller ceilings

N’orleans can keep their oversized, surely overpriced, and Pelli Clarke Pelli designed junque. The new KC airport terminal is pretty good in my opinion. The 40FT ceilings here are a good height.

Their terminal clocked in at $1billion. Ours is $1.5 billion. Albeit they started 6 years earlier than us.

New Orleans:

$1.3 billion, 35 gates
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/06/new-orl ... minal.html

$37.1 million per gate


KC:
$1.5 billion, 42 gates. 35.7 million per gate.
It was originally $1.64 billion or $39 million per gate


Ours is 96% the cost. I wouldn't call New Orleans overpriced. If anything ours is underpriced.