Repairing and Maintaining Airport Parking Structures While in Use (2013)

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41 MINNEAPOLIS—ST. PAUL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport (MSP) parking struc- tures at Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 have not required major resto- ration in the last 10 years. Airport parking management attributes this to a well-planned and disciplined capital maintenance pro- gram that invests between $2.5 and $4 million annually. To complete the work necessary in the time that Minnesota weather and parking demand allow, the program carefully schedules the closure of entire levels but for only a few weeks between May 1st and September 15th. This proactive, tightly controlled, and highly communicated schedule succeeds because it carefully matches those specific weeks of reduced customer demand and warmer temperatures with the work to be completed. Specific lessons were learned and applied so this program continues to improve: • The contracted project engineer is open to learning and incorporating the primary importance of customer ser- vice and the nuances of the MSP parking facilities and operations into the project. These concerns drive the specifications, the work, and the schedule required of the construction contractor. These concerns place specific restrictions on the number of levels out of service at any one time and that construction impacts in dust, noise, etc. to the public will be limited and controlled. This means some work will be scheduled at night or on weekends when fewer customers are impacted. • When the contractor or engineer requests alteration to the approved schedule to complete more work by remov- ing more spaces from service, the parking manager uses the prior year’s parking demand records to approve, dis- approve, or alter the request to meet the airport’s cus- tomer service goals. The frequency of these requests led to a Spaces Allowed Out of Service Per Week of Work report the engineer now uses to develop next year’s schedule of work and to address current year’s contrac- tor change requests. Use of this report has had a direct impact by reducing the inconvenience to the customer each year. • Weekly construction meetings include the parking man- agement contractor. This allows them to alert their staff to upcoming concerns and to meet with the airport park- ing manager to decide how best to address concerns in the upcoming weeks. • Flaggers from the MSP parking management company control traffic rather than hired flaggers by the contrac- tors who may well be on-site for the first time. This pro- vides more consistent customer service and more accurate answers to customers’ concerns as well as lower costs. Planning construction logistics plays a major role in main- taining smooth operations. These practices include: • In June the budget is set and establishing the work and schedule for next year begins. This provides sufficient time for budget updates (approved in November), allows the work to be clearly understood by the stakeholders, and makes it possible for the work to be scheduled when it least impacts customers. An early start also allows inclusion of lessons learned performing the work this summer and the identification or resolution of any new problems. Updates on required products, methods, and required timeframes for completion can be incorporated. We also update our customers’ parking experience (how often and for how long we overflowed our parking structures) vs. the Spaces Out constraint from this year’s schedule. We realize that we seek to manage but not eliminate construction impacts on the customer’s parking experience. • Signs at the entrance to each parking level inform custom- ers of the specific date that this level will close 14 days in advance. Customers know they can park on this level if they plan to return from their trip and leave before that date. Signs are also posted where customers leave the Terminal into these parking levels. Remaining vehicles are carefully towed to another level or just moved out of harm’s way on the same level. Once vehicles (actually very few) have been relocated, a sign at the parking level entrance from the Terminal informs customers (by their vehicle’s license plate number) of their vehicle’s location with an apology for any inconvenience. In cases where an area closure necessitates rerouting traffic, additional attention must focus on timing and logistics. When a major artery, entrance, or exit must close, staff must care- fully analyze traffic patterns and determine the best alternate routes. Depending on the duration of the closure, live flaggers may not be cost effective 24/7. Careful planning of temporary signage changes is essential, especially when there is live traf- fic moving through the areas while the new traffic routes are being established. Signs must be approved and ordered well in advance. The order of sign installation, equipment, and staff- ing must be well-planned. The “strike team” must be prepared to quickly and effectively change possibly dozens of overhead and eye-level signs on each level. Someone must inspect the work and drive through the areas wearing “the customers’ eyes.” And, finally, removal of the signs should be just as well-coordinated. • Once construction activities are complete on a particular level, the schedule includes time for the airport’s trades to compete their annual maintenance work before the area is opened for parking. This creates efficiencies and safety as they do not have to deal with vehicles or traffic and reduces their work time. Their work includes power washing to remove surface salts and oil drips, restriping the stalls, re-lamping, repairing drains, etc. A level may be reopened to the public with only a few parking spaces closed if needed for the trades to safely complete their work to better meet that week’s parking demand. Agree- ment on the schedule in the fall, as to which parking levels will be available to the airport’s trades staff next summer, allows time for them to schedule staff, order and receive supplies, and arrange equipment necessary to complete their work. Budget tracking is the responsibility of the MSP project man- ager, who works with the contracted construction manager and the engineer. They work closely with the construction contractor APPENDIX B Case Examples

42 on a weekly basis to ensure submittals, field orders, and the like are moving through the approval processes and match with the budget. Despite all the efforts, some decisions in the field made by the contractor or their subcontractors for their convenience occa- sionally impact parking customers. Some examples include: • Rerouting traffic without gaining permission from airport parking manager • Placing materials or equipment in unauthorized stalls or exit lanes • Installing makeshift traffic routing signs not approved by the airport parking manager • Contractors parking their vehicles in unauthorized areas or along the roadways. The lesson is that the airport parking manager and the park- ing management company must provide constant supervision in the field, and identify and quickly correct the poor decisions of contractors and engineers before customers are affected. This is especially necessary as the construction contractor may change from year to year and lessons learned by last year’s contractor may need to be retaught this year. The schedule is the aspect of planning logistics most fre- quently tested. Once, a junior engineer approved the contractor to work in an area for a few days beyond the schedule. This delayed the reopening of a 500-space level for parking and cus- tomers had to be re-routed without notice to other parking areas. Another issue occurs when equipment or critical supplies arrive late. In this case, the team has to reassess the schedule in light of set priorities—customer service followed by completion of the necessary work. This has led to work being rescheduled to the end of the project or postponed until next year. Another concern was when parking management assumes that contractors and partners (engineers, project managers, etc.) actually understand airport parking as well as parking manage- ment does. This led to customer impacts or lower quality of work being accepted by the engineer. Airport parking manage- ment must understand that contractors and engineers have dif- ferent priorities, operational freedoms, and work assumptions when they work on non-airport parking projects. However, once the project engineer and the parking management company understand the airport’s priorities, they can help avoid “sched- ule or scope creep” by the construction contractor before the customer’s parking experience is impacted. Stakeholders help develop the scope, budget, and initiation of needed work. These include MSP trades staff (plumbers for drainage, electricians for upgrading power loads, information technology for upgrades, etc.), other airport staff, police and fire responders, and public relations, as well as ground transporta- tion staff (managers of taxis, shuttles, limos, and buses). With the scoping and scheduling starting early in the summer, stakehold- ers have time to supply their thoughts and ideas for the project and schedule. DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT Rewrite of ACRP—Case Study for Denver International Airport—by Bill Shirk—Nov. 7, 2012. Beginning in 2000, Denver International Airport (DIA) undertook an 11-year, $37 million restoration program in six of its seven parking structures, making repairs and applying water- proofing methods to improve the precast concrete structures’ corrosion resistance and to extend their useful lives. To provide the required expertise, DIA hired a specialty consulting firm that concentrates on parking garage designs and repairs to plan the repair programs and then to monitor con- struction on a full-time basis. This continual oversight was essential to maintaining quality of the finished repairs. At DIA, the Airport Parking Administration department is responsible for the daily operation of the garages. The specialty consult- ing firm developed the recommendations of scope and budget for the anticipated repairs. Senior airport management reviewed the budget requests and made final determinations on the proj- ect funding. DIA Planning and Development and the specialty consulting firm managed the approved projects throughout the actual work phase. In addition to the technical repair details, it was essential to plan the work to minimize disruptions to the overall DIA opera- tions and to the customers. The following ideas were used to meet these requirements: 1. Notify the customers of impending work closure areas. The contracts required the contractors to post signage at roadway entrances and along walkways to the terminal at least two weeks before the construction closures would go into effect. The closure sizes were coordinated with the Parking Administration to limit the areas out of service and to provide sufficient space for the contractor to effi- ciently complete the work. 2. Provide contract requirements to hold the contractors responsible for minimizing disruptions. The contracts included penalties for generating noise, dust, or fumes, or in any other way disrupting or interrupting the operations of the airport. 3. Make the contractors responsible for towing cars that were still in the work zone after the two-week notice. The contractors were also responsible for posting signs to notify customers where cars were relocated. 4. Make the contractors responsible for customer com- plaints, including construction dust on cars and any other customer complaint resulting from the construc- tion operations. These processes were closely monitored by the DIA Plan- ning and Development team. CHICAGO O’HARE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT Chicago O’Hare International Airport underwent a three-year $65 million restoration project beginning in 1995 to repair a parking garage in poor condition. The scope consisted of replacement of the expansion joints and drainage troughs, making repairs to the post-tensioning system and ramp over- lays, performing full and partial depth repairs to the elevated slabs, and installing a deck protection system consisting of a traffic-bearing membrane and joint sealants. In 2006, pre- mature distress at the expansion joints forced the removal and replacement of 13,345 feet of expansion joints including headers. Successful actions that helped maintain smooth parking operations throughout the initial restoration project included setting aside enough time for advanced planning, ensuring there was adequate labor to keep the project running smoothly, and hiring a third-party consultant to monitor the schedule and budget. As for the later expansion joint repair, successful

43 actions included an early pre-construction meeting among the general contractor, installation contractor, and the manufacturer to review all necessary quality-assurance measures; and use of a third-party field-testing firm to monitor all progress. Addi- tional planning that kept operations running smoothly included an expansion joint workshop, during which everyone involved met with the manufacturer for a dry run of the project before it began. Repair implementation of expansion joint replacements was phased over two construction seasons. Some issues that disrupted parking operations during the ini- tial restoration included: 1. Concrete debris dropping. Some fell on the level below where concrete repair was taking place. 2. Maintaining revenue security. In some incidences, the con- tractors forgot to close the gates after entering and leaving. 3. Having two different contractors for on different levels. (One was much better and faster than the other.) 4. Specified expansion joint product. The specified expan- sion joint turned out to be poor and not durable, providing barely five years of good service instead of the 20 years they were supposed to last. Many different people and companies were responsible in developing the scope, budget, and project initiation. The pri- mary stakeholder was the city of Chicago. Other stakehold- ers included the airline companies, Standard Parking, which runs the parking garage, and the architects and construction managers.