Michigan Central Stationwhich was closed in 1988 and threatened with demolition until 2009, reopened on June 6 after a comprehensive renovation and restoration of the tower and the circa-1913 Detroit Railroad Terminal.
The 18-story building, which once served more than 4,000 rail passengers a day and housed thousands of office workers, now serves as the anchor building on a new 30-acre research and technology campus being developed by part of Ford Motor Co.
Architecture office Quinn Evans was the designer of the renovation. The joint venture team of Christman-Brinker served as the contractor and construction manager of the project at risk of the construction manager. Michigan Central Station has approximately 640,000 square feet of space, including a 13-story tower above the main terminal at street level and basement levels. The Beaux-Arts structure, once among the nation’s most prominent early 20th-century train stations, was designed by Wetmore and Reed & Sternwho was also the architectural team for New York’s Grand Central Station.
Image courtesy of the Chicago Department of Transportation
Excavation and foundation work for Satellite room 1a component of the $8.5 billion O’Hare Terminal 21 area expansion and modernization project, is scheduled to begin this summer.
Billion dollar lobby construction manager risk team and related infrastructure is a joint venture of AECOM, Clayco i Bowa construction.
The design of the project is carried out by Chicago architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill with Ross Barney Architects, Juan Gabriel Moreno Architects and engineers Rubinos & Mesia Engineering (RME) Inc. and Arup.
Major construction is expected to begin in mid-2025, Kevin Bargnes, director of communications for the Chicago Department of Aviation, said at a May 30 news conference.
Plans for the concourse, which will serve both domestic and international passengers, call for the addition of 19 gates. The new gates will allow the airport to handle aircraft of different sizes, as well as increase operational efficiency for carriers and reduce layovers for passengers, according to the city.
Preliminary work on the satellite project began in March with the construction of several temporary taxiways and a new grade-separated roadway, the reconfiguration of taxiway B and the construction of three new temporary gates at the entrance C, which opened this spring.
The master expansion plan, unveiled in 2018, calls for the creation of two new satellite concourses, a new global O’Hare terminal to replace Terminal 2, and an expansion of Terminal 5, which was completed in early 2023.
The start of work to rebuild Terminal 2 was delayed amid cost concerns from the airport’s two main airlines, United and American.
“The O’Hare Global Terminal project remains in the design phase and CDA expects to release updated construction schedule estimates in the coming months,” Bargnes said.
Jeanne Gangfounding director and lead designer of study group based in the city’s Wicker Park neighborhood, Chicago-based architecture firms Solomon Cordwell Buenz, STL Architects and engineer based in Chicago Milhouse Engineering and Construction they are part of the Terminal 2 team
The design of the Satellite 1 Concourse includes a barrel vault structure with curved windows, tree-shaped support columns and an oculus at the top of a walkway area that will connect the satellite to O’Hare . The hall is expected to be completed in 2028.
