Passenger Security Check Expansion – Chicago Midway International Airport—Chicago, IL

Airports see more foot traffic than almost any kind of public building – and all those travelers can be punishing to floors. Chicago’s Midway Airport sees more than 18 million travelers every year, and supporting a space that can not only meet those demands, but last for the long term is no easy feat. When it came time to floor an elevated security gate, terrazzo was the only logical choice.

“The ideal part of it is the low maintenance,” said Clayton Menconi, Senior Project Manager at Menconi Terrazzo, which handled the project. “We’re really operating on a 50-100 year lifecycle for a floor. If you put terrazzo in, it’s going to stay with the building for the long term.”

Covering around 96,000 square feet in four different colors, the expansion had to match closely the existing space. More challenging was that the floor was mostly set into a bridge crossing Cicero Avenue, going right into the center of the airport.

“It’s a six-lane highway that goes underneath it, we were actually making a huge bridge over it,” Menconi said. “Logistically it was a challenge, getting the material up there, and figuring out the power – they hadn’t needed power for initial construction, but we needed it for the installation. We had to use lulls and various means to kind of boom materials up – small elevators would have taken a lot longer.”

In addition to the huge terrazzo panels, 19 columns of four foot poured-in-place terrazzo also line the space. The result is a striking functional space, with a solid foundation that’s a testament to the skilled craftsmanship of the builders, and that’s ready to stand the test of time.

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