As Southwest Airlines expands international operations, it needs a Florida hub that can accommodate the additional flights — and without impacting the company’s hallmark quick turns on the ground.

Broward County Aviation Department responded with this $333 million project to modernize and enlarge Terminal 1 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL). We served as civil design lead for the Corgan and Gresham, Smith and Partners architectural team.

Using the Construction Manager at Risk alternative delivery model, the project was completed in about two years. Our project team delivered final design and construction phasing in about nine months. The first international flight took off from the “new” terminal on June 24, 2017.

Besides modernizing an existing terminal with new floors, lights and lavatories, the project also enlarged the interior to accommodate more customs counters, security and border patrol. It added a new concourse and five international gates. And the new exterior now occupies a larger footprint and features a translucent, cylindrical enclosure that’s sure to become a visual icon to travelers.

Our role as civil design lead placed us at the center of the design-build process, giving us a unique ability to pivot between multiple parties — regulatory agencies, the construction manager, architects, airport operators and airlines — to execute civil design tasks fluidly and in a sequence that kept other phases of the project moving forward.

Constant collaboration and weekly design meetings using BlueBeam Studios allowed us to find flexibility when permitting, relocating utilities, and striping around gates, scheduling structural components and defining work areas — even during peak season when no more than two gates could be affected.