Anvesh Motadoo laughs with excitement and a little surprise when he compares past experiences working on airport projects to Sacramento International Airport’s (SMF) new $140 million gateway as part of its $1.4 billion global modernization and expansion program.
Rather than calling him upset, “here, the community is very happy about it,” says Balfour Beatty’s senior project manager. “They love the airport. We walk down the street and passengers ask, ‘What’s that?’ And we talk to them. They’re like, super excited.”
SMF had the busiest month in its history this June with 1,296,818 passengers, according to the region. It saw 13,822,315 passengers in fiscal year 2025, also a record. “We’ve recovered from COVID very quickly,” says TJ Chen, the airport’s deputy director of planning and development. “We are the only airport in Northern California that is experiencing significant growth.”
With a pedestrian bridge connecting Terminal B with Concourse B, passengers have an alternative to the people-moving train.
Photo courtesy of Balfour Beatty
To keep up with this growth, the SMForward program is underway. The glass-enclosed pedestrian walkway was completed this summer, with an opening scheduled for next year. A new 5,500-space parking garage is also under construction, as are road realignments, all financed in part by a $469 million bond issue last year and a $36.1 million TIFIA loan from the Build America Bureau this year, a first for airports, which became eligible for such loans under the bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
The quarter-mile walkway liner, built by Balfour Beatty and designed by DWL Architects and Planners and a joint venture with Parsons Corp. and Vanir providing construction management and inspection services, marked a key milestone for SMForward. It is Sacramento County’s first at-risk construction manager contract.
“Recruitment can be very litigious and contentious, but we don’t have that,” Chen says. “We’ll have our disagreements, but we’ll always find a way to work it out. I really see Balfour Beatty as partners, because we can’t do it ourselves. We need their expertise, their resources, their knowledge.”
The new parking lot is designed as five structures so crews can pour concrete every day of the week.
Photo courtesy of Otto Construction
Both the building and the bridge
Balfour Beatty established its field office directly at the airport next to the project site. Crews poured 5,136 cubic yards of concrete, placed 1,703 tons of structural steel and installed 153 auger-cast piles and seven drilled-hole piles, about 90 feet deep, for the footbridge foundations.
“We had to thread the needle.”
—Kyle Frandsen, vice president of Balfour Beatty, discussing the footing of the footbridge
The steel construction spanned three active roads – Lindbergh, Lower Airport and Upper Airport – without disrupting airport operations, a feat made possible by six months of planning and coordination with airport staff.
The pedestrian walkway will connect Terminal B and Concourse B, providing an alternative to automated able-bodied transport and providing an option in case it breaks down. Crews are working on installing elevators, moving walkways, decks, curtain wall and exterior finishes. Terrazzo floors, commissioning and final finishes are planned for next year.
“The complexity of this project is that the terminal and concourse are at different elevations,” says Motadoo, noting a difference of 70 feet. In addition, the structure had to meet both bridge and building codes. “Typically, you have a building or a bridge, but that’s about 50 percent at the bottom of a bridge structure … at the top, it has to look like a terminal. When you’re talking about a deep-foundation bridge, our tolerances are 1 to 2 inches. When you lift, you’re talking about an eighth of an inch of tolerance.”
The foundations of the footbridge are sandwiched between existing buildings, tunnels and public services.
Image courtesy of Balfour Beatty
The southern part of the walkway aligns with the third level of Terminal B and transitions to a concourse structure to bring people to the B concourse level via escalators, stairs and elevators.
Another unexpected challenge arose when crews operating the foundation’s drilling rig hit a 17-foot-deep concrete slab, says Kyle Frandsen, vice president of Balfour Beatty. The 12 inch one. The “rat slab” had been dumped years ago just above the underground water table.
“So we had a job,” says Motadoo. It was great fun watching the team come together, including the airport design team. Everyone was saying, what do you need to run this operation? Because we had about 25 people there, really specialized drillers. So we moved on. We didn’t stop a beat.”
Frandsen notes the columns’ proximity to public services, terminal facilities and a baggage handling tunnel. “We had to thread the needle,” he says. Building information modeling helped avoid clashes as the tunnel wound its way through the tight spaces.
Limited conditions include the ongoing construction of the Terminal B car park a few meters away.
The walkway includes a core that provides a crucial transition between Terminal B and Concourse B.
Photo courtesy of SMForward
Five in One
Otto Construction is building the garage under a roughly $229 million design-build contract, also a first of its kind for the county. International Parking Design Inc., with JWSE Structural Engineers, designed the polygon-shaped structure that spans approximately 453 feet wide and 868 feet long, covering a total area of 1,945,571 square feet. It is designed with a long-lasting cast-in-situ concrete system that includes a cast-in-situ concrete system with a base of slabs and post-tensioned and prestressed slabs. contractor website. A lateral load resistance system, achieved by moment-resisting frames in both longitudinal and transverse directions, was selected to create a visually open design that improves safety and orientation.
Forrest Stuckey, Otto’s senior superintendent, notes the need for speed. “Typically for [parking garage] cover, we would place one cover per week. We have 124 deck locations; that would be 2.5 years.” So the design and construction team approached the structure as if it were five separate garages, each with its own weekly dump.
“It ends up being every day of the week,” says Stuckey. “Garage A on Monday, B on Tuesday…the concrete testing labs had to be ready to play ball. We needed buy-in from our subordinates and business partners.” The team has two cranes and two concrete pumps on site, with two concrete plants each about 10 minutes away, he adds.
“Recruitment can be very litigious and contentious, but we don’t have that.”
—TJ Chen, Assistant Director of Planning and Development, Sacramento Airport
“There were structural considerations regarding the maximum amounts of floor space that could be built without seismic joints,” says Raju Nandwana, president of International Parking Design. “We worked with the formwork contractor and structural engineer to divide the building into five segments as independent structures that will be built simultaneously.”
Stuckey points to an advantage for mechanical, electrical and plumbing subcontractors: “Typically on the deck, MEP contractors are out for a few days, then come down and come back the next week,” he says. “Because this is every day, they commit to being on site throughout the week with smaller crews.”
Thanks to a $2 million commitment from the airport, both the walkway and garage will have permanent art installations. The installation in the garage will feature hundreds of perforated steel panels with local place names and imagery inspired by farmland. The catwalk will feature aluminum bird sculptures; suspended glass washers, geographic brass inlays and indigenous plant motifs; and lunar imagery and meteorite-inspired soils.
According to the airport, an RFQ will be issued for artwork to adorn the additional six-gate expansion area of Concourse B. The estimated $415 million project is in the procurement phase with an expected 2028 opening.
Due to the different elevations of the two structures, the core has escalators, elevators and stairs.
Photo courtesy of SMForward
looking ahead
Other projects at SMForward include a roughly $25 million departure road, a planned baggage handling upgrade for Terminals A and B, an estimated $50 million ground transportation hub for taxis, carpools and shuttles, and finally, a consolidated rental car facility that will eliminate the current need to take a shuttle.
“We are in the process of getting our congress [B] The expansion on the left side started with the procurement process,” says Chen. “This is the next large and complex project we are about to embark on.”
The planned consolidated care rental facility will be “probably the most complex project in the entire program,” he adds. “Just from an equipment standpoint, now you have to have fuel stations, wash stations, all in one facility.”
The overall SMForward program is currently scheduled for completion in 2028.
