Mobile Airport Swap Underway: Officials Consider Project Management Team for New Terminal

Mobile’s commercial airport swap is on track to be completed by 2024.

But to get to that point, a new airport terminal and parking garage needs to be built and a project team needs to be assigned to oversee the construction.

The Mobile Airport Authority (MAA) on Monday took a step toward assigning the project’s lead to Birmingham-based Hoar Program Management (HPM). The firm scored the highest among competitors for the project management job for the design and construction of a proposed $160 million terminal complex at the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley, a 216-acre industrial complex southeast of downtown Mobile.

The final selection of a project manager comes less than two months after the Federal Aviation Administration approved the MAA’s 20-year master plan for swapping commercial aviation operations in Mobile, from the airport’s longtime home at Mobile Regional Airport in west Mobile to Brookley.

“I won’t be willing to celebrate until we cut the ribbon,” said Elliot Maisel, MAA board chairman. “We have made it past the FAA approval stage. We are now talking about hiring a firm to guide us through the construction phase of the terminal, the parking garage and all of the infrastructure work that will take.”

Maisel added, “We have a great master plan that accommodates our vision and accommodates the community’s need.”

The MAA voted on Monday to authorize the airport’s management team to hire a consultant at a fee not to exceed $5,000 to negotiate the terms of a contract with HPM. A third-party consultant assigned to hammering out the terms of a project manager’s agreement is a requirement under the Federal Aviation Administration, according to airport president Chris Curry.

“It’s a widely used process in the industry,” said Curry.

The third-party team’s work is expected to be completed by mid-July, at which time the MAA could negotiate a final agreement with HPM. If an agreement cannot be worked out with HPM, the airport will proceed with negotiations with the second highest scoring team assessed by airport management, which was Volkert Inc.

HPM, which has offices in Mobile, was the lead design and construction expertise during the $600 million Airbus final assembly project that opened in 2015.

Curry said an important criteria was for the program manager have an Alabama presence. But Russell Stallings, the airport’s capital program manager, said that HPM’s work on the Airbus project helped make the firm stand out among competitors as did its experience in Progressive-Design Build projects. PDB project, which include airport terminals, allow for heightened collaboration between the owner, designer, and builders of a project by selecting the key project team early in the project development.

Curry said the airport has a three-year goal to open the new terminal, an eight-gate building that will be around 130,000 square feet, or slightly smaller than Mobile Regional Airport “but will be more efficient,” according to airport officials. The new terminal will be close to six times larger than the existing 22,800-square-foot Downtown Mobile Airport terminal, a two-gate facility that was retrofitted in a warehouse as part of an $8 million project completed in May 2019 to accommodate low-cost carriers.

Curry said the first year of the construction project will involve environmental studies and relocating some businesses that are within the footprint of the new terminal project.

The new terminal be built along Michigan Avenue within Brookley, and will not be far from the existing Downtown Mobile terminal that served as the site for low-cost commercial flights to Denver and Chicago by Frontier Airlines.

Curry said the existing terminal, within the next three years, can serve future low-cost carriers if they choose to come to Mobile. Frontier, during the coronavirus pandemic in early June, discontinued flights out of Brookley. But Curry has said he felt the airport’s experience with the airline was positive enough to confirm that the airport swap was justified since around 60 percent of passengers on those flights were Baldwin County residents.

“The airline industry is unpredictable, but Frontier confirmed what we already knew,” Curry said. “If we moved to this airport, we could serve a larger percentage of people.”

Curry has said that 55 percent of the Mobile market is lost to Pensacola International Airport and Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport for several factors: High air fares, the far-flung location of Mobile Regional Airport about 10 miles from an interstate, and traffic congestion along Airport Boulevard.

Statistics show both airports outperforming Mobile. Pensacola enplaned close to 840,000 passengers in 2017, while Gulfport- Biloxi hosted around 324,000 that year. Mobile Regional, by comparison, enplaned 303,871 passengers in 2018. Forecasts show the future Downtown airport enplaning 523,000 passengers in 2025 – the year after the airport is targeted to open.

Curry said a relocated airport to Brookley offers several synergies with close proximity to I-10 and I-65, the CSX rail line and the Port of Mobile. The new airport is also a quick trip north to the core of downtown Mobile.

But some concerns exist over the airport’s future expansions into nearby neighborhoods, and at least one state lawmaker continues to have worries.

State Rep. Barbara Drummond, D- Mobile, said she is concerned that the airport will want to expand into surrounding neighborhoods in Maysville and Oakdale. She said if residential properties were seized within those neighborhoods, she worries that homeowners would not be compensated enough to “maintain a standard of living” in another section of the city.

“The communities around the airport are concerned about what is about to happen to their properties,” said Drummond. “Those are valid concerns.”

The airport covets nearby property northwest of the Downtown airport that is owned by the Mobile Housing Authority. But airport officials have said they do not plan to expand beyond the Brookley Aeroplex footprint, which means there are few plans to obtain properties west of I-10.

Maisel said, “We worked diligently to locate this (terminal complex) within the existing Brookley campus in such a manner that no homes or residents in that regard, are required or needed or will be requested to move.”

Related content: Will airport changes in Mobile hurt neighborhoods?

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