Terminal Designers Roll Out Red Carpet for Visitors

Creating the newest "international gateway" at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport has provided a lesson in construction and design management.

Those who have ever utilized Terminal D knows that the experience is no picnic -- cars lined up, people coming and going in the same place and nowhere to wait for passengers.

As one newly arrived international visitor complained to her frustrated Houstonian host, "I live in a Third World country, and the systems at our airport there are a lot better than they are in Houston!"

The Federal Service Inspections building will change all that. Its main purpose is to allow U.S. Customs to speed up the process with regard to foreign visitors coming into Houston.

Opening Jan. 25, the 900,000-square-foo t, $450 million building, dubbed the international arrivals building, will serve as a gateway to link passengers to U.S. Customs services, other federal agencies and airport terminals.

"We have had international growth at a rate of about 13 (percent) to 14 percent per year," says Richard Vacar, director of the Houston Airport System. "We have also added 14 international locations, so this is very good for carriers."

However, the overall process presented the building and design team with a variety of challenges, including how to avoid interrupting airport operations, con