Aspen airport schematic design: team proposes a reduced 'opening‑day' terminal and phased build to manage cost, slope and sustainability goals

At a joint session with the Airport Advisory Board, Pitkin County staff and the design team presented final schematic design work for the Aspen airport terminal modernization and a recommended phased approach to keep construction affordable while preserving long‑term options.

Tony Martinez, the project manager (noted in the meeting as his final day on the project), and ZGF Architects summarized why the team is recommending a two‑stage approach. The full schematic design package completed earlier in the year carried a terminal program of roughly 129,000 square feet and site elements that included a 617‑stall parking garage and consolidated passenger plaza. Late in schematic design, runway and apron grading (slopes approaching 1.2–2%) and early cost estimates pushed the team to analyze a reduced opening‑day concept that preserves the passenger flow and curb geometry while cutting initial building area and deferring some elements to a funded phase two.

Under the recommended opening‑day scenario, the terminal is reduced to about 93,500 square feet. The plan retains core processing — ticketing, baggage screening and security areas sized to current schedules — while consolidating third‑level hold rooms down one level and using a hybrid gate approach: four ground‑loaded positions (similar to current operations) plus three positions served by jet bridges. The design team showed how that arrangement responds to the site grade: lowering the passenger hold level reduces the need for multiple fixed bridges to reach aircraft sill heights on a sloped apron.

The opening‑day site concept relies on surface parking to keep up with near‑term needs (the team estimated roughly 410 long‑ and short‑term stalls on the north side and about 80 employee stalls and 55 rental stalls on the south) so a garage can be added later in phase two if funding and demand warrant it. Staff said the design preserves curb geometry and multimodal loop alignments so later work (a garage, consolidated rental‑car operations or a gondola landing) would not require reworking passenger flow.

Sustainability and systems: ZGF architect Jake Dunn outlined an aggressive energy and carbon strategy. He said the existing terminal’s energy‑use index (EUI) is about 220 and the design target for the new terminal is an EUI near 80 — roughly a 64% reduction — achieved through a high‑performance envelope, passive‑solar strategies (deep overhangs, skylights and interior shading), and an optimized HVAC strategy that blends geothermal wellfields with air‑source heat pumps. The team is also studying PV and battery combinations with Holy Cross Energy to avoid export tariffs and to increase on‑site renewable capture. Jake said those moves could deliver operational savings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year if integrated with lower energy use.

On other sustainability items the team reported significant water‑use reductions (a current modeling target near a 65% reduction, roughly 3.5 million gallons saved via xeric planting, irrigation reduction and graywater reuse) and a much smaller, targeted apron snow‑melt area (reduced in SD from initial concepts of 120,000 square feet to roughly 10,000 square feet) to constrain energy demand.

Questions from AAB and task‑force members focused on three practical challenges: how to secure employee parking during peak shift changes, whether the opening‑day holdroom area and seating meet demand on busy days, and the timeframe for selecting a construction manager at risk and moving into design development. Staff said an eight‑week alignment phase will reconsolidate drawings, allow the selected CMAR (referred to in the meeting as the "Seymar") to validate costs and constructability, and refine payback analysis for energy investments. The team emphasized that many design decisions (mechanical sizing, enclosure of makeup/baggage spaces, and detailed aesthetics) will be finalized in design development with contractor input.

No formal approvals were taken at the work session. The Airport Advisory Board will make a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners, and staff said they will return with refined cost estimates and an updated schedule after the alignment phase and CMAR selection.

What’s next: eight‑week alignment to reconcile schematic drawings and cost input from the CMAR, two additional task‑force checks during design development, and continued public outreach and permit work as budget and phasing decisions are refined.