This isn’t a speculative, unfunded design competition. The city has already promised to borrow $4 billion toward the $8.5 billion O'Hare 21 expansion plan.
"Mayor Rahm Emanuel has kicked off an international competition to design O’Hare’s massive expansion plan," according to an article by Jonathan Hilburg.
The city has issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to potential lead architectural designers—available here [pdf]—for what Mayor Emanuel has coined O’Hare 21. All of the proposed work falls under O’Hare’s Terminal Area Plan (TAP), a sprawling plan to modernize the airport with a new global terminal (OGT), global concourse (OGC), and Satellite Concourses One and Two.
O'Hare 21 is backed by an $8.5 billion financing plan approved by the Chicago City Council in March 2018. It's the largest ever expansion plan for O'Hare, and it will increase the size of the airport from 5.5 million to 8.9 million square feet. Hilburg shares more details of the expected changes the plan will put into effect.
FULL STORY: International competition for Chicago’s O’Hare expansion takes off
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