November 11-17, 2004

cityspace

Port Security

by Jonas Raab

Harrisburg International Airport is now home to the first American airport terminal both designed and built after 9/11 to meet federal security standards. Although other airport terminals across the nation meet the heightened requirements, Harrisburg is the first to incorporate them in the design stage, allowing the appropriate room for security checkpoints and keeping baggage screening out of sight.

In the wake of 9/11, most airports had to rush to become security compliant. As such, security mechanisms made for crowded passenger areas and increased waiting times at check-in and checkpoints. But David Scheuermann, AIA principal of the Sheward Partnership, the Philadelphia architecture firm that designed the terminal, says Harrisburg now has a more streamlined appearance.

"The challenge for us was integrating post-9/11 security with pre-9/11 passenger travel convenience," he says. Burns Group Engineering and Construction of Philadelphia was also involved in the project. "You see no security equipment, no large machines, no additional baggage conveyors. There are no excessive queue lines."

Harrisburg International Airport, which is serviced by eight major airlines including Delta, US Airways and United Airlines, has more than 120 flights daily to and from 14 domestic locations and Toronto. Well over 1 million passengers use the airport annually. Securing feeder airports like Harrisburg—which have flights that connect to larger facilities—is particularly important considering a pair of 9/11 hijackers passed security in Portland, Maine, before boarding their doomed plane in Boston.

The new terminal is equipped with 12 multiuse jet gates, electronic ticket check-in machines for passengers without checked baggage, twice as many baggage carousels, and a multimillion-dollar, three-quarter-mile-long, in-line baggage screening system. The old terminal had only two lanes for check-in, whereas the new one has six.

Security checkpoints were designed to allow enough room for the appropriate machinery and volume of passengers.

That makes Harrisburg distinct, as some airports just do not have the room to do this, Scheuermann says, and the result looks thrown together. Even the new terminal at Philadelphia International Airport had already been designed prior to 9/11, and designers had to augment their plans in a hurry. Since some foundations had already been poured, it was difficult to do so without sacrificing some passenger comforts, he added.