Denver International Airport has selected a consortium—led by Ferrovial Airports International Ltd., Madrid, which also operates airports in Europe and the United Kingdom—to begin negotiating a public-private partnership to improve the airport’s Jeppesen Terminal.
The terminal has 1.5 million sq ft of space and includes passenger ticketing, baggage claim, ground transportation, international arrivals, shops and restaurants, office areas, and Transportation Security Agency security checkpoints, which recently have been clogged by long lines of summer passengers.
The upgrade will consolidate airline ticket counters; relocate TSA screening areas to the airport’s top level; modify the baggage-handling system under the terminal to support the relocated ticket counters; and redesign shopping and dining areas.
Airport officials have not released the project’s price range, which will be determined, in part, by negotiations with the P3 team. But it will cost “a minimum of $200 million,” says DIA spokeswoman Stacey Stegman. “It all depends upon what we decide to do ourselves and what pieces of it the team does.”
The P3 team includes equity partners Ferrovial Airports, a JLC-Saunders joint venture, with Magic Johnson Enterprises & Loop Capital; design-build partners Ferrovial Agroman and Saunders Construction; architectural firms Luis Vidal + Architects, Harrison Kornberg Architects and Anderson Mason Dale; legal adviser Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; and financial adviser Citibank.
Other competing P3 finalists were Plenary Group USA; Westfield Corp. from Australia; and the U.K.’s Manchester Airport Group.
Over the next six to eight weeks, the owner and Ferrovial will negotiate to define the scope of work, then, in August, present the predevelopment contract to the Denver City Council for approval.
That approval will be followed by six months of additional negotiations to refine further the scope of work, the design, the financial terms and an initial schedule for a long-term P3. At the end of predevelopment, the airport and the city will decide whether to proceed with the P3.
