A friend and fellow board member of the City of Fountains Foundation got a tour on Monday, with a few other people, of the new airport terminal, which is expected to open in March.
I was at the airport last week and again on Monday and could only see the project from a distance. Several photos that my friend took give a much better idea of how well the new terminal is coming along.
There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly striking about the new terminal, architecturally speaking — and that’s too bad — but it looks like it’s going to be very functional. Certainly, it will be leaps and bounds better than the old crescent-shaped terminals, which are now about 50 years old and no longer practical.
Here are some photos, compliments of Casey Cassias, a retired architect with BNIM.
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We’ve waited a long time for a modern airport, and now, thankfully, the day is just about on us.
(Thanks to Casey Cassias for this exceptional phographic preview.)
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Nice and new. Wondered what 1.5 B$ would buy. Apparently it wasn’t enough to include an architect as this thing looks like it was designed by an engineer. How sad & disappointing it’s only new & nice.
I toured the airport with NLC (National League of Cities) mid November. The amount of glass to allow so much natural light is amazing, and we’ll get to stay in the light until we board our planes. The restrooms are amazing, especially for any traveler who has been trapped “post-security” in Terminal B. KC-emphasized artwork and food will give travelers the opportunity to recognize WHERE they are, if they want to know. Traffic flow for departures and arrivals will be similar to other airports — efficient and practical. So far, I am NOT disappointed.
Thanks for the comment, Chris. From the photos, it looked like there would be a lot of natural light, but I didn’t want to assume that was the case. While it’s regrettable that new KCI will not be architecturally distinctive, say like Denver’s “peaked roofs” that mimic the surrounding mountains, it will be a big success if it is airy and functional. People tend to feel good when in lots of natural light.
I believe the word you meant to use was “generic”…
Nice write up jimmyc – I’ve toured a few times (as part of our firm’s work there) and it continues to impress. Admittedly, it’s more function over form, and I too would have preferred an architectural flourish that would be celebrated and impress the traveler (especially considering our rich history of Kivett & Myers 1972 iconic three C design as well as other KC landmarks).
Equally important is the need for the new facility – we are woefully behind with our outdated and inefficient terminal, both for us in KC and as a welcoming “front door” to our visitors and new business opportunities for our region.
Lastly, this new terminal will be an opportunity to remind us to stop and celebrate why the building exists in the first place. At the end of Jeff MacGregor’s October Smithsonian Magazine article about the Bell X-1, he reminds us of the “transcendence” of flight. He writes:
“There was always a powerful appeal in postwar notions of supersonic flight, when a machine like the X-1 promised something like freedom or escape: an imagined life so fast and so high and so clean that nothing bad could ever catch us again. But the unspoken promise of every technology is the one it can’t deliver: transcendence.
“Nonmilitary flight eventually became a commercial tedium, a series of shoeless corrals leading to a subsonic middle seat, a subpar romantic comedy and a lost suitcase. Global air travel is a miracle when you stop to think about it. But no one does. Instead, we’ve made the very angels ordinary. And when there are no more firsts, we’re left with nothing but our contempt for the familiar. Faster even than a rocket is how quickly the future becomes the past.
“But once, long ago, on a blue October morning under the impossible vaults of heaven, one of us rose and flew faster than the roar of our own hopes, and for a moment, everything seemed possible.”
I found Mr. MacGregor’s words inspiring, as I often do yours JimmyC Fitz!
Thanks, Pete. (Readers — Pete’s firm is Kissick Construction.)
I’ll see you at the fund-raiser this evening…
Looks very nice. But like most people, I’m more interested in choice of destinations, flight times and fares. How does a new terminal improve all of those?
Columbia’s new terminal opened a few weeks ago. It, too, is very nice. A lot of people assume it will attract more airlines — currently there’s just one, American — but unfortunately that’s not how it works. So the vast majority will continue to trek to MCI or STL.