Dulles International Airport is about to mark another milestone as the opening of its 14-gate Concourse E draws closer.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority expects to take possession of concessions facilities from Turner Construction Co. on March 30. On April 1, contractors for restaurants, retail outlets and other concessionaires will be able to start work on their spaces.
Between now and the concourse’s expected opening in the fall, it will be an “all hands on deck” effort, said Chryssa Westerlund, MWAA’s executive vice president and chief revenue officer.
Staff from the authority “will be on-site regularly to check progress,” Westerlund said when briefing the authority’s board of directors on March 18.
Last September, MWAA announced the first concessionaires for the concourse. Restaurants will include Ellie Bird, Good Company Doughnuts & Cafe, Bonchon, Aventino, Rusty Taco and Honor Brewing, and there will be a food court with Wendy’s, Jimmy John’s, Dunkin’, Dos Toros Taqueria and Stratus Bar.
Two duty-free retail spaces, plus Travel Tech for technology purchases and a Gameway video-gaming lounge, were also part of the September announcement.
Last month, MWAA teamed with Turner Construction and Fraport, which is managing retail areas, for a kickoff meeting with the concessionaires and their contractors to discuss moving forward in the coming months.
It is one facet of what was described by Thomas Beatty, an executive vice president and chief operations officer at Dulles Airport, as a “steady and advanced execution” of Concourse E and other capital projects.
“Interior buildout remains active” in the concourse with the authority collaborating with the future terminal’s prime tenant, United Airlines, Beatty said.
The 435,000-square-foot concourse is designed to augment existing terminal facilities on the sprawling Dulles campus. It will have direct AeroTrain access to the main terminal and most other terminals.
The new terminal is part of a $7 billion master plan for Dulles approved last year by MWAA’s directors. The plan is designed to accommodate growth to as many as 90 million passengers per year, more than triple the current total.
Since then, President Donald Trump has pushed for an even more aggressive modernization and expansion effort, prompting the U.S. Department of Transportation to solicit proposals from firms for terminal redesigns or other updates at the airport.
At the March 18 meeting, MWAA President and CEO Jack Potter said the authority is actively participating in the effort.
“We are working closely with our airport partners and the Department of Transportation,” he said. “We appreciate the Trump administration’s interest.”
As part of a future redevelopment, MWAA board members voted at their March meeting to solicit expressions of interest from firms seeking to help move some existing support facilities to a 238-acre site on the southern part of the 13,000-acre airport footprint.
The solicitation says facilities to be relocated could include “in-flight catering kitchens, air cargo facilities, cold chain and perishables facilities, aircraft maintenance and repair facilities aircraft hangars, ground service equipment support areas, and other aviation-related operations.”
At a minimum, those seeking to participate will need to propose plans for the relocation of six cargo bays to the new area by 2031.
All projects would follow a process called DBFOM — where the private entity is responsible for design, building, financing, operating and maintaining the facilities for a set period of time. After the end of that period, facilities would transfer to ownership of MWAA.
