ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Lambert International Airport has released a multi-year plan for how it could maintain operations while a new terminal is built, with one suggestion that airlines could move into a Terminal 1 concourse that is currently closed.
The airport's leader, Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, stressed that the plan is preliminary and could change.
Lambert is to complete a master plan mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration this fall, with plans to include the new single-terminal pitch. Negotiations with airlines over how to finance the reported $3 billion airport overhaul, with consolidation to a single, 62-gate terminal, could then take two years. A 12-month environmental review process could occur during that window.
The city of St. Louis, which owns Lambert, can put out a request for proposals for architecture and design work only after those steps are complete, Hamm-Niebruegge said.
"You won't get a complete phasing plan until we've moved into the full architecture design," she said.
Still, the plan released by the airport, from consultant WSP, affirms that the single-terminal idea, first unveiled in January, is possible, Hamm-Niebruegge said.
Most noteworthy might be the suggestion that Terminal 1 airlines at one point move into concourse D, which is currently closed, "but still functional," Hamm-Niebruegge said.
As an alternative, part of the new terminal could be built, with airlines taking those gates instead of moving into D, she added.
Hamm-Niebruegge on Tuesday also addressed inflation's potential impact on the massive project.
She said the $2.8 billion price tag for the single-terminal vision had been developed fairly recently, and considered inflation. "Could the cost of the terminal change? Absolutely," Hamm-Niebruegge said.
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