“It’s art by design,” says Granato of the Port of Portland. “We’ve found that it adds a lot when you don’t have to go with the easiest, fastest, cheapest possible way to build.” Blessing in Disguise Such ambitious design led to a tight and unforgiving construction schedule. To keep the airport running while the roof was constructed and installed, footballfield-size roof panels were prefabricated entirely off-site. They were then hauled on modular transporters the mile and a half to the terminal, maneuvered into place and connected, all during four-hour gaps in airport operations in the middle of the night. Stress is natural in airport work, where little problems can quickly snowball into avalanches. Slowdowns in the graveyard shift can affect the day shift. If the day shift is late, that can impact flights departing PDX. Slowdowns at PDX can ripple to LAX and other airports. In no time, global air travel can be staggered all because of a sleepy construction worker in Portland. The inherent stress is one reason leaders at the airport are proud of TCORE’s safety record. At the time of this writing, the project had gone 12 months without a lost-time day. (Oregon OSHA has one complaint on file regarding the TCORE project. The incident took place in November 2021, and the cited party is the Port of Portland. Firefighters were delayed responding to a fire in an electrical room due to missing signs and locked doors. Oregon OSHA ultimately determined appropriate action was taken to correct the hazard.) But in February, items were dropped from height twice in quick succession. Nearby TSA agents could have been hurt. Hoffman Skanska called an all-hands meeting where leaders again underlined safety and finishing the project strong. Then, right after work resumed, two more drops. “After that, I said, we’re shutting it down,” Granato says. The joint venture called a “safety reset” and froze the project for three days. At the next meeting of the Port’s directors, Granato and Skanska’s project lead, Joe Schneider, let them know the May completion date was not going to happen. “There was just too much stress on the schedule,” Granato tells OB. “Everybody was feeling it.” Safety is a bottom-line issue across the construction industry, as it is at PDX, where in 1997, three ironworkers fell to their deaths in the collapse of a seven-story parking structure due to loose bolts. Today a plaque on the first floor of Parking Garage 1 commemorates Donn Soto, Nick Colouzis, Christopher Rider “and all the craftspeople who made it possible.” Schneider said after the reset, workers thanked him. “The safety incidents turned out to be, in an odd way, a blessing,” he said. New Hope Phase 1, which represents around two-thirds of the terminal core project, is now scheduled to open in August, though an exact date has not been announced. The celebration won’t last long: The day after Phase I opens, Phase II begins. Travelers love PDX. It consistently makes lists of best large airports, like the J.D. Power and Associates list, which ranked the airport at No. 12 among large airports in 2023. The teal carpet with geometric shapes that covered most of the terminal from the 1990s until 2015 was so popular that sections of it were sold as rugs — and later inspired the design of a Trail Blazers uniform and a sneaker. The new carpet isn’t quite the same design but is so recognizable that social media-savvy travelers post photos of their shoes to signal they’re headed into or out of Portland. While no one uses “LAX” as a shorthand for the city of Los Angeles, or “MSP” as a nickname for any part of Minneapolis other than the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, when locals or frequent visitors talk about “PDX,” they might mean Portland International Airport, but they might also be talking about Portland itself. Planners hope the new design will make travelers love PDX —the airport and the city—even more. “Right now, Portland has kind of been struggling,” said says Sandoval of ZGF. “But when you go to the airport and you see this project, you feel this sense of optimism and civic pride. It represents positivity and it represents hope. It represents civility and what all of us coming together can do.” Dave Garske, vice president of Hoffman Construction 39
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTcxMjMwNg==