With at least $15 billion in capital projects either in the works or on tap at Los Angeles International Airport, it’s bonanza time for contractors seeking work opportunities at the airport.
Last week, Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that administers LAX, announced the development team for a massive overhaul of air-cargo facilities at the airport. The co-developers are out-of-state companies – one from Chicago and the other from Annapolis, Maryland.
And LAWA recently announced that Sept. 13 is the deadline for firms seeking to get qualified for the first master list of companies that airport officials can turn to for nearly $1 billion worth of work related to the capital improvement projects over the next five years.
The cargo-overhaul contract was long awaited and twice delayed; it aims to develop a detailed plan to replace overcrowded and outdated cargo-handling facilities on the LAX airfield.
Currently, LAX has three cargo areas with 27 buildings, totaling about 2.6 million square feet, and roughly 3.5 million square feet of aircraft ramp area. Ranging from 20 to 80 years old, many of these facilities are at the end of their useful life; also, many lack the technological capacity for installation of sensors and other automated cargo-handling equipment now commomplace in the industry.
About six or seven years ago, LAWA came up with a plan for a single, massive two-story, 450,000-square-foot cargo facility to serve as the centerpiece for the cargo overhaul. But LAWA set aside that plan over concerns that moving ahead with construction at that time could interfere with the billions of dollars in other capital-improvement projects underway at the airport.
Last fall, LAWA officials were ready to try again – this time with a more open-ended call for proposals.
On July 24, LAWA announced the winning team to be tasked with developing more detailed plans for the cargo overhaul. One co-development consortium was LAX Community Partners, which is a joint venture specifically formed for this enterprise between air-cargo facilities developer Aeroterm, a unit of Annapolis, Maryland-based Realterm, and New York private equity firm JLC Infrastructure, which was formed in 2015 as a joint venture between Beverly Hills-based Magic Johnson Enterprises and Chicago-based Loop Capital Partners.
LAWA also simultaneously announced Chicago-based Ricondo & Associates Inc. as the lead company on the environmental, technical and expert consulting team.
As this is still considered the pre-development phase for the cargo-overhaul program, there is no definitive timetable or budget for the actual construction phase, according to LAWA spokeswoman Jessica Merritt.
Master consulting contract
Looking ahead to future contracts, LAWA is in the midst of soliciting proposals from companies eager to be placed on master lists for a wide range of contracts associated with the airport’s capital improvement program.
The lists will contain a pool of prequalified professional consulting firms that will subsequently be invited to submit task-order proposals to provide program services, including, but not limited to, project management, construction management, project controls, inspection, testing, and additional professional services.
The deadline for submission of qualifications for the first of three such master lists is September 13.
According to Terri Mestas, LAWA’s chief development officer, more than 2,200 individuals attended four informational conferences about these contract opportunities during the first half of this year. She stressed that the focus with this raft of master lists is on contractor diversity.
