Love Field Renovation At Cruising Altitude
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Dallas Love Field is roaring ahead with its first major terminal renovations since the 1950s. It's a $519 million project designed to be more than a facelift and more than keeping up with DFW.
As one official put it, it's the front door to the city of Dallas. "When you talk about eight million people coming through this terminal, it really has a lot of impact on a lot of people," says interim aviation director Mark Duebner.
Those eight-million people a year are an unusually loyal bunch as flyers go. But they welcome the new upgrades to ease their travel challenge. "It's not convenient to go from the parking space to the check-in," says Kannan Jayaraman, "it's not quite that easy, so I think in all it will help."
"I think it just needs the facelift," says Alex Santos, who added "the aesthetics need to be brought up if it's going to compare to Dallas-Fort Worth."
But Love Field's construction is more than a facelift. Beginning next week passengers will find the lobby moved to a completed portion of the terminal so more can be done to upgrade it. A new ticket hall in the fall. And then in the spring of 2013, the first 11 of the new gates will open. Then, Duebner says, "we can get busy with the demolition of the old west concourse and we can finish the construction of the terminal."
In touring the new construction today, CBS 11 was told 9,000 people are being employed with an emphasis on minority and women contractors. Target date for completion: 2014.
It can't come soon enough for passenger Sandy Pearson. "I guess the ease, the newness of it, it's really quick to get through Love Field."
At the same time, another Love Field Milestone was going on at Dallas City Hall, where concessionaires who agreed to stay open during construction were being rewarded with a lottery; an opportunity to get first dibs on about a quarter of the prime space in the new terminal.
"The terminal, the amenities, the environment as well as the concessions....the things that peopple are going to see and do, it's really the front door of the city of Dallas," said Duebner, adding, "And I'm excited we're going to have a pretty neat front door for them to see."
Late Thursday concessionaires with an earlier contract sought an injunction to block the lottery, claiming it did not measure up to an earlier agreement the earlier concessionaires had with the city.
In the meantime, patience will be the order of the day. The tunnel between the baggage claim and terminal will soon go away, and roadways will force the re-routing of traffic for two more years.
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