Barring another City Council revolt like the one that sent a publicly approved plan for a new airport into a tailspin last fall, Kansas City will be getting a new airport designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). SOM is one of the oldest and largest architectural urban planning and engineering firms in the nation, with an airport track record second to none. The proposed $1 billion single terminal – the largest capital project in the city’s history – will replace the three existing terminals built more than four decades ago.
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In presenting the drawings at a City Council meeting on October 5, Derek Moore, Director of Aviation Practice at SOM, pointed to some of the highlights prepared for the KCI project, including an approach to the terminal that “makes reference to the boulevards of Kansas City” and a two-level structure, where passengers would arrive on the lower level and depart on the upper level, and be moved about on moving walkways.
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At the same October 5 meeting, Peter Lefkovits, an associate director at SOM, pointed to a proposed two-story fountain with technology to display custom messages on the cascading water, as the focal point for the departure hall, picking up on the local theme of a “city of fountains.”