Grand Rapids Airport (GRR) News and Developments

[joeDowntown]

Airport officials are considering applying the brakes to a new parking ramp after its $60 million price tag as much as doubled.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ss...14235257940.xml

Is this parking ramp lined with gold? To be surprised by a $120 million parking ramp seems like an understatement. It is obvious that GRR needs more parking but I don't understand how rising construction costs and a couple of skywalks (with elevators) could inflate the numbers that much.

It seems like they may need a third opinion on this one. Alticor is building a 700 space ramp for $11 million. Multiply that by ten and they'd get 7000 spaces (instead of 4800) and save $10 million. Somebody get the DeVos' on the horn

Joe

[MJLO]

Good Call! I think something needs to be done quickly, anyone can agree, our airport is a tad hokey when put next to other airports, from cities of like size. They've made some good strides there recently, but still are far from where it should be. but $120 million? do you think it has something to do with added security features?

[joeDowntown]

That is what I was thinking. Must be all of that batman titanium plating. I actually laughed when I read the price. Wow!

MetroKid, you got the scoop on this one? I know you are part of some planning commission with the airport.

Joe

Good Call!  I think something needs to be done quickly, anyone can agree, our airport is a tad hokey when put next to other airports, from cities of like size.  They've made some good strides there recently, but still are far from where it should be.  but $120 million? do you think it has something to do with added security features?

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[GRDadof3]

That is what I was thinking. Must be all of that batman titanium plating. I actually laughed when I read the price. Wow!

MetroKid, you got the scoop on this one? I know you are part of some planning commission with the airport.

Joe

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I almost fell off my chair too Wasn't the Van Andel Arena built for about $75 Mil? Maybe my perception of inflation is way off.

The new ramp at Detroit Metro was $123 Million, and is 89 acres and holds 11,000 cars. http://www.pci.org/prof_newsletter/issue_01/detroit.cfm

[joeDowntown]

Right, so how could a 4 story, 4800 car ramp cost the same as a 10 story, 11,000 car ramp?! It can't be because of the skywalks and elevators. Read what the Detroit ramp has:

The 89-acre, 10-level facility includes such features as a ground transportation center, pedestrian bridge to terminal, a commercial vehicle roadway, county administration offices, two luggage check-in locations on different levels, conveyors and bridges to transport luggage to the airport, six restrooms, three offices for parking officials and two electrical substations. It also includes 1,000 feet of moving walkway, 13 elevators, 12 stair towers, eight interior speed ramps and two double-helix exit ramps to divide areas to park 11,489 cars into seven user groups. To ease traffic flow, 6 Pay-on-Foot stations and a walk-up pay window were provided along with cashier stations at the exit.

I'd dare say that construction costs in Detroit are even higher than Grand Rapids because of the strength of union workers. Maybe the person calculating this pushed the wrong number on his 10-key.

Joe

I almost fell off my chair too

[snoogit]

It sounds like the costinflated not because of the ramp, but because of all the other "improvements" the airport felt it needed (supposedly a canopy, and it sounds like a renovation of the main enterance)

[mgreven]

Now it sounds like the airport is OK with the huge price tag.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ss...46880200330.xml

or with a picture...

http://www.mlive.com/grpress/frontpage/pdfs/Re_Thursday.pdf

Loks nice, but still seems REALLY pricey!

[metrogrkid]

That is what I was thinking. Must be all of that batman titanium plating. I actually laughed when I read the price. Wow!

MetroKid, you got the scoop on this one? I know you are part of some planning commission with the airport.

Joe

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Joe:

I'm not on the Aeronautics Board. I'm on the GT2 Mass Transit Rail Planning Committee of ITP/The Rapid. Incidentally however, that ramp absolutely needs to plan for inclusion of the Ford Airport Station for the upcoming rail system as well as being looked at as the IDEAL location for perching a major expansion of the main terminal on top of. Since I know personally that neither of these common sensical and synergistic concepts are even being thought about, I do this ---> and this ---> quite a bit. But wait!! Why don't I just inform you all of this like I just did so that you can become enraged and create a loud SHOUT of emails to the Board of Aeronautics members?

[superNOVA]

The canopy is $20 million of it. $20 million, for a canopy? WOW, must be a nice canopy. How much was the Bus Depot - they have a big canopy.

All I am saying is that this should be one hell of a parking ramp. Sadly, we need a big ramp and it has been about 20 years since it should have been built. Even more sad is that this is the solution.

What is wrong with a normal downtown style cheap ramp (Ellis does these well) and a normal cheap canopy?

[snoogit]

How in the hell did they convince that many dutchmen to vote yes on that?

I'm in agreeance with ya, You could do a cheap ramp, have it look like the GRCC ramp at Lyon, and no one would care! Add a gas-station style canopy for all we care! This just seems like a big waste of money to me.

Theres no need for glass facades, and wavy canopies for GRR

[joeDowntown]

It's actually pretty nice looking. Of course, the scan sucks. Sorry:

Joe

[Nitro]

It's actually pretty nice looking. Of course, the scan sucks. Sorry:

Joe

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Ok, the wave motif in this city has run its course. Devos, The GR Press Facility, The Rapid......etc.

Can we please design something else ??

Nitro

[Rizzo]

^wheres the damn river?!

[GRDadof3]

Ok, the wave motif in this city has run its course.  Devos, The GR Press Facility, The Rapid......etc.

Can we please design something else ??

Nitro

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Oh, come on. In the future, A biotech convention in town would have people landing at the wave airport, ride rapid transit down to the wave ITP Station, ride over to the wave convention center, tour the wave Van Andel Institute, and have a reception at the Wave Room at Celebration Village

[joeDowntown]

I drove past the new GR Press Print Facility again Yesterday and it has to be one of the most gawd awful buildings in town. I guess the GRPress has a knack for buildings that will look like total sh*t within 3-5 years... Yuck!

Joe

Ok, the wave motif in this city has run its course.  Devos, The GR Press Facility, The Rapid......etc.

Can we please design something else ??

Nitro

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[snoogit]

I drove past the new GR Press Print Facility again Yesterday and it has to be one of the most gawd awful buildings in town. I guess the GRPress has a knack for buildings that will look like total sh*t within 3-5 years... Yuck!

Joe

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I'm surprised they put any archetectural effort into the printing facility. Hey, at least it has something to look at, and its not a giant cement block

[MJLO]

I think one of the reasons they said the canopy was needed was for aesthetic purposes. The Ramp itself is more than twice the size of the terminal. The way our airport looks right now, one might assume we have goats grazing on the tarmack. I love the canopy, I think it would do great things to make the airport look more like the size of airport it is. Either way, the price tag anxst was eased, because the designers of the ramp, were able to show the aeronautics board, that the ramp would pay for itself.

Edited July 5, 2005 by MJLO

[Nitro]

I drove past the new GR Press Print Facility again Yesterday and it has to be one of the most gawd awful buildings in town. I guess the GRPress has a knack for buildings that will look like total sh*t within 3-5 years... Yuck!

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Aesthetics aside I was quite impressed with the design of the building from a functional standpoint. I got to tour the building before it was completed and just to see that massive press was enough to take your breath away.

Something the construction superintendent told me that struck me as interesting was that the construction drawings came to them with virtually no dimensions on them. The building was fast tracked to the point where dimensioning of the plans was not in the cards. The entire building is laid out on a 4' grid. Every wall, door, window, lighting fixture, etc. snaps to some point on that 4' grid. The superintendent said it was an easy building to build; no one came and asked him what the dimensions were supposed to be. Every trade knew their stuff snapped to the grid somewhere.

That

Edited July 5, 2005 by Nitro

[GRDadof3]

Aesthetics aside I was quite impressed with the design of the building from a functional standpoint.  I got to tour the building before it was completed and just to see that massive press was enough to take your breath away.

Something the construction superintendent told me that struck me as interesting was that the construction drawings came to them with virtually no dimensions on them.  The building was fast tracked to the point where dimensioning of the plans was not in the cards.  The entire building is laid out on a 4' grid.  Every wall, door, window, lighting fixture, etc. snaps to some point on that 4' grid.  The superintendent said it was an easy building to build; no one came and asked him what the dimensions were supposed to be.  Every trade knew their stuff snapped to the grid somewhere.

That

[Nitro]

I heard that the tolerances required for the concrete floor under the press were something like +/- a few millimeters, for a span of 100's of feet.

Edited July 5, 2005 by Nitro

[snoogit]

I heard that the tolerances required for the concrete floor under the press were something like +/- a few millimeters, for a span of 100's of feet.  I'm not a big fan of the building, but I think it fits in with the Grooters "Big White Boxes" out there

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If theres one thing Hes done wrong, its the White box farm along I-96... ugh pass by it daily

[dnast]

Actually the acceptable tolerance is much tighter then that.  The spec for that floor is what is called "super flat" it's actually closer to hundredths or thousandths of an inch over a span of a couple hundred feet.  The concrete is screeded with robotics and is checked with lasers.  Pretty high tech stuff.

Nitro

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I'm completely out of touch with said project, but is it really necessary to have that much precision??

[Nitro]

I'm completely out of touch with said project, but is it really necessary to have that much precision??

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In some instances yes. This particular project has a 4 or 5 story massive printing press that requires a very flat floor due to the complexity of the interworkings of the press.

I can't remember the exact number but I heard it took 4 or 5 cargo ships to bring this press over from Germany.

Pretty cool stuff.

Nitro

[GR_Urbanist]

^wheres the damn river?!

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It is ironic that a city that has turned it's river into a glorified drainage ditch would be so keen on emulating it on so many buildings.

[dnast]

In some instances yes.  This particular project has a 4 or 5 story massive printing press that requires a very flat floor due to the complexity of the interworkings of the press. 

I can't remember the exact number but I heard it took 4 or 5 cargo ships to bring this press over from Germany.

Pretty cool stuff.

Nitro

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Wow. That actually sounds very interesting, but I don't want to take this thread too far off topic. Our local daily paper in Flint finally got a new press up and running last year (the last one was over 50 years old). They never went into much detail about the press, though. I didn't know their environments had to be so delicately measured!