Demolition will begin in the next two weeks on hourly parking decks at the Charlotte Airport to make way for a new seven-story parking tower. Aviation Director Jerry Orr says parkers will soon need to give themselves extra time getting to the terminal.
"For close to a year starting in the spring there will be no walking access to parking," says Orr.
He says the airport has plenty of shuttle buses to handle the extra passengers, but will increase the frequency of bus trips.
The new $120 million parking structure should be open by November 2014. Throughout most of 2013, even temporary parkers just coming to pick up a passenger will need to take a shuttle bus to the terminal. Orr says the new parking deck will nearly double the airport's current hourly-parking capacity and move rental car operations to within walking distance of the terminal.
The current hourly parking decks are made of pre-cast concrete slabs that will be disassembled – rather than imploded. Orr says the airport will use those concrete pieces as fill for new surface parking lots.