Before dawn at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the central processor rises in pieces: steel looms over the terminal’s old footprint as the skyway soars overhead and the underground Interterminal Train (ITT) rumbles below. As part of United Airlines’ $2.55 million Terminal B transformation, the new processor is taking shape in one of the nation’s most constrained construction zones, a site that has already logged more than 2.4 million hours of work as of late January.
Crews lift a major steel truss into place at the new central processor in Terminal B at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Photo courtesy of Clark Construction
An airport in motion
Clark Construction crews work in tight windows between active road and rail systems, preparing another lift to the new security room. The 180-ton truss they installed earlier this year, lifted by two 1,100-ton cranes working in tandem on opposite sides of the venue, now frames the roofline that will guide passengers into the screening area.
A few hundred yards away, Manhattan Construction is moving forward on the new North Terminal B concourse at a similar pace. Crews are placing more than 1.6 million square feet of replacement deck paving, trenches of nearly 20,000 linear feet of jet fuel lines and raised steel for the 765,000-square-foot hall in 44 sequences. PGAL designers walk the site with Manhattan superintendents, checking the drawings against the structure as it goes up, level by level.
Inside the old processor, Clark’s teams navigate a building still partially alive. A year of enabling work redirected police operations, replaced 40-year-old train controllers and built a new kitchen to keep the concessions running. Pedestrian tunnels were demolished with only inches of clearance between an active roadway and the Skyway above.
Night crews cut steel under an active overpass as demolition progresses in a tightly controlled work zone.
Photo courtesy of Clark Construction
Rhythm of the day
By mid-morning, more than 400 United flights pass through the center and construction takes place in parallel: crews, cranes, trains and passengers flow along the same footprint. The choreography is constant, and the stakes are high; every hour of construction has to coexist with a hub that moves tens of thousands of people a day.
“People show up because they believe in the mission.”
—Rob Walker, General Manager of Planning and Development, United Airlines
Clark’s scope includes a 250,000-square-foot addition for check-in, security and baggage handling, along with a 275,000-square-foot renovation of the existing processor in the post-security area. Presented under a construction manager-at-risk progressive design model, work is progressing even as design packages continue to be developed, an approach the team says is essential to achieving United’s goal of a September first flight. The processor deactivation, completed in a single one-night shift, capped more than a year of enablement work. The demolition required careful sequencing, including removing the tunnel with minimal clearance and a tandem crane pickup from the ITT tunnel. The processor’s ETFE roof cover, made in Spain and molded in Germany, adds another layer of long-term coordination.
Clark’s early investigative work revealed that the processor, built in 1969, had undergone decades of undocumented renovations. The teams removed slabs, laser scanned the building and opened ceilings while the processor was still running. When conditions didn’t match the drawings, Clark and Page/Stantec developed new solutions, including a lattice bracing system that allowed road demolition and steel construction while baggage systems and passengers continued to move underneath. Traffic planning required similar creativity. Named for the Terminal A and B loop on which it was based, the AB Loop Optimization moved vehicles off North Terminal Road so crews could install utilities without disrupting the airport’s traffic flow, allowing the work to be completed in about three months.
Crews work under the live track as construction progresses on the new Terminal B processor at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport, part of United’s ongoing transformation program.
Photo courtesy of Clark Construction
The Nervous Center
Coordination of this progress is within a single project management office, simply called the PMO, where United, Clark Construction, Manhattan Construction, PGAL, Page/Stantec, AECOM and Jacobs work side by side. The space is more than a logistics center; it is the cultural center of the entire program.
“An important element in successful closing … is getting everyone into the building,” says Kayla Wengler, United’s director of planning and development. “Collaboration is much easier when you can walk in and see someone and talk about something.”
This project is “Houston’s new gateway.”
—Jason Fuller, Project Executive, Manhattan Construction
United’s leadership describes the PMO’s culture as grounded in the program’s nine pillars: safety-focused; driven by schedules; innovative resources; structured and adaptable; focused on planning; resistant and aggressive; ethics; reliable; and unified and supportive. These principles are manifested in everyday behavior: purposeful action, shared ownership, and a refusal to let bureaucracy slow down work.
“You can feel the momentum in this place,” says Rob Walker, United’s general manager of planning and development. “People show up because they believe in the mission and in each other. When hundreds of people are headed in the same direction, it changes what’s possible, and that unity is the heartbeat of this program.”
For Clark, this culture is the foundation of the fast track strategy. “It all starts with a strong relationship between all partners and a collaborative approach,” says project executive Nick McAlister. Page/Stantec director Jeff Mechlem calls the setup “unique” at this scale. “It’s one thing to sit in the same space, but another to actually work and act as one team,” he adds.
Crews are dismantling sections of the original 1969 Terminal B processor, making room for the new central processor as United’s rapid transformation leapfrogs decades of undocumented renovations and tight airside restrictions.
Photo courtesy of Clark Construction
Unified approach, fast delivery
In the corridor, Manhattan and PGAL rely on the same co-location model to drive the North Concourse at record speed. When they first followed the project, both teams assumed that United wanted to keep as many doors open as possible. Ivan Pire, director of PGAL, says the team had prepared a phased plan to rebuild the concourse in sections maintaining five or six flight stations at a time. But once they sat down with United, the direction changed immediately. The airline needed the full North Concourse delivered by 2026, and the partial phase would not support the baggage handling system or airfield operations needed to make it possible. “They told us, ‘We have planes coming,'” says Pire.
That pivot required a complete resequencing of the work and a total closure of the north doors. The first packages included the relocation of 1,800 linear feet of 21-in. sanitary line at a depth of 20 to 25 feet, installing two 16-in. aviation fuel line bypasses to maintain Terminal C supply and develop plan B strategies for self-sufficient chilled water system and concourse data connectivity. These moves paved the way for deep foundations, structural steel, and the rapid vertical construction now visible from the airfield.
Being in the same building allowed the team to solve problems quickly. “Emails only go so far,” says James Matthews, director of the Manhattan Project. “When you can look at the same thing and point and talk … you minimize the days of time from a problem arising to a response.”
Manhattan project executive Jason Fuller says sharing a workspace with other CMRs and design teams also helps streamline processes. Case in point: Manhattan’s 30-30-30 security practice, which was developed from teams working side-by-side in an environment with thousands of people moving through small areas. An audible tone every 30 minutes prompts crews to pause for 30 seconds and scan 30 feet around them—a simple, disciplined reset for a job in constant motion.
A prefabricated gangway is lifted into place as crews pass the work through the air-tight windows, which are part of the carefully sequenced construction.
Photo courtesy of Clark Construction
Rhythm, association and momentum
As the program moves toward its two major milestones: opening Terminal B’s north concourse in September and completing work on the south concourse in 2028, teams say the traveler experience is never far from the front of mind.
Even with the planning, sequencing and coordination required to keep the project moving, they’re always thinking about how passengers will feel the first time they walk through the finished spaces.
Fuller calls the project “the new gateway to Houston,” a sentiment shared by Clark Senior Superintendent Zack Rajter. “I’m a United flyer and I’m going through this terminal with my own family,” he says. “I want people to feel the pride and effort that went into it, even if they never see the challenges we overcame to get here.”
That pride is especially personal for Manhattan General Superintendent Blake Bielski. “I grew up 10 minutes down the road,” he says. “To build something of this scale in the place where I saw airplanes as a kid, that means a lot.”
And as the teams look towards opening day, Walker frames the ethos in the simplest of terms: “Expect that things are going to be tough, but expect that if you work together … you can get through it at the finish line.”
The finish line, however, is only part of the story. The new Terminal B will serve millions of passengers for decades, but for the people building it, the legacy is already visible. It is in the overnight processor deactivation that occurred in a single shift. It is in bypasses and reinforcement schemes that kept critical systems running while construction progressed. And it is in the nine pillars of the program displayed in the corridor of the PMO, approved every morning by the teams that shaped them.
