The new passenger terminal at Hollywood Burbank Airport continues to get ready for its close-up.

With steel framing finished, the terminal building is approximately 55 percent completed and on schedule for an October 2026 opening. Upon completion, the terminal will consist of a 355,000-sq.-ft. building with 14 passenger gates, shops, restaurants, a ticketing lobby and a new TSA checkpoint and baggage claim area.

Mike Headley, a project superintendent with Holder, Pankow, TEC — a joint venture, said the terminal is brand new ground up construction with a new entrance. The $1.3 billion project also includes concourses, a new parking garage and parking spaces.

Holder, Pankow, TEC photo

"The whole goal is not to increase the size and quantity of passengers," Headley said. "By having a new airport being built, we're able to increase the efficiency of the airport. The old airport has two terminals and two TSA gates, splitting the airport into two. This new airport is going to allow us to have all 14 gates under one terminal, which allows for one TSA checkpoint, it allows for one baggage pickup area. It allows us to unify the airport into one single entity."

The new terminal is a design-build project and is being constructed on an accelerated three-year schedule. A similar project would take years longer.

"While we're out in the field building this, we have a whole design team actively working to finish out the design," Headley said.

Construction started in January 2024, but the terminal itself began being built in May 2024.

The existing airport is on the southeast corner of the site. The new terminal building is on a parcel a little more than 1,000 ft. away so construction will not affect airport operations. However, dust screens and fencing will be constructed while demolishing the old terminal to make sure the work doesn't affect operations of the new one.

Nonetheless, said Jack Chapman, a manager with Holder, Pankow, TEC, "While we do have the benefit of it being a somewhat self-contained site, it is still tight. While it may look large from a bird's eye view, we have to take a lot of special considerations into account to make sure we have enough space for equipment and material."

Because of the space constraints, the project is using on-time delivery.

"There are almost three projects going on," Headley said. "There's our civil responsibilities, which is paving, the taxiways and the gate. We have garage operations and pouring concrete. And then the entire build out of the terminal.

"People are delivering just the material that we need within a week's span, which is a huge logistics constraint, making sure this material is arriving on time and it's not just sitting around. There's a lot of microplanning and scheduling in order to keep the guys moving efficiently to meet such a tight schedule," he said.

What is now Hollywood Burbank Airport opened in 1930. The original terminal is still in use but does not meet the minimum FAA design standards now in place.

Holder, Pankow, TEC photo

The project began with the demolition of an old building, infrastructure and parking lots.

Because there is a 16-ft. difference from the north side of the site to the south side, crews "flipped the site," taking spoils from the site grading to balance out the elevation using multiple belly scrapers, also called wheel tractor scrapers.

The crews also had to dig a hole, approximately 20-ft. deep, to create the baggage basement so the system can be hidden underground. Crews used ground up parking lot asphalt and used it as backfill material on the crater.

With the basement completed, workers then were able to erect the terminal's concrete foundation, followed by exterior steel framing and the installation of the interior's mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.

To conform to California's building codes, every aspect of the building, from the steel to the MEP installation, was designed with seismic protections. The contractors used a proprietary side plate design, which made a special steel connection between the columns and the beams. This allows any seismic load to be transferred to the earth while eliminating a lot of cross bracing, opening up the building for walls and windows.

The structure was erected with a Liebherr LR 1300 330-ton crawler crane and a Liebherr LTM1220-5.2 120-ton mobile hydraulic crane.

The terminal also called for a glass curtain wall wrapping around the building rising as high as 55-ft. The contractors used a Magni Telescopic Handler with a special suction cup attachment to position the prefabricated panels into place.

The roof was constructed with sheets of water and sun resistant PVC that was heat welded together.

"It's a waterproof seal so that water can't infiltrate inside the building and will deter the water away to the drain systems," Headley said.

Crews also began constructing the building's swooping roof canopy that extends into the facade of the airport's parking structure. Headley called it "an amazing architectural feature," while press materials described it as evoking a silver screen in a public plaza. The roof is supported by cantilevering, or B columns, meant to represent old Hollywood spotlights and to give the terminal a modernized Hollywood feel.

The terminal was built with a workforce of up to 400 people. At present, there are approximately 900 tradespeople on site. CEG