WestJet Airlines Ltd.’s announcement of a new $90 million office complex is just the latest brick in a building boom at Canada’s fastest growing airport.
Airport Construction
WestJet Airlines Ltd.’s announcement of a new $90 million office complex is just the latest brick in a building boom at Canada’s fastest growing airport.
Reporting an all-time high for net earnings in the first quarter of this year, WestJet says its board has approved construction of a new office facility to be built next to the airline’s existing facility at the Calgary International Airport.
The decision to build was prompted by soaring rents. Staff now work in seven buildings and the rent at the airlines main office has more than doubled in the past 30 months.
Construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of next year.
WestJet’s new building is being built at the cargo area of the airport but north of that area the main terminal – which has doubled in size since 1992 – is about to under go even more expansion.
Thanks to the Alberta boom, a record number of travellers—more than 11 million passengers, a million more than the year before—used the airport last year, making it the fastest growing in Canada. If growth continues at the 43 per cent experienced in the last four years Calgary will pass Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport next year as Canada’s third largest.
Construction is expected to begin as soon as next year on a multi floor extension to concourse B/C, used to connect passengers to American, European, Mexican and Caribbean destinations. The work will double the size of the concourse, renovate Canada Customs and U.S. pre clearance and add six new international gates.
A new feature for Canadian airports will be a large gathering space centred around a shopping mall instead of individual holding rooms at the gates.
This will be the largest single project ever undertaken inside the terminal and is part of a 10-year renovation plan that includes a $300 million north-south runway, thousands of new parking stalls and an expansion of air cargo and freight facilities.
Cost of the International Facilities Project, estimated at $400 million, will be financed through the Airport Improvement Fee. The fee rises $5 to $20 on June 1, the second time in three years it has been raised. The increase makes Calgary’s the priciest airport fee in Canada outside Toronto and is being blamed on the Calgary building boom which has pushed up construction costs for current and upcoming expansion projects.
“We have a very high construction cost environment and we have growth that is expected to continue for the foreseeable future,” says Calgary Airport Authority CEO Garth Atkinson. “We have to provide the infrastructure.”
Cohos Evamy, veterans of Calgary airport expansion projects, is the prime architectural consultant. Cohos Evamy has hired Airbiz, an Australian company specializing in design of air terminals, as a sub-consultant. UMA is program manager, Ellis-Don Construction Services Inc. is construction manager, Read Jones Christoffersen Ltd. is in charge of structural engineering and Earth Tech Canada Inc. is responsible for electrical and mechanical.
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