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SALT LAKE CITY — As Salt Lake City was going through the process of designing what the city's new airport would look like, airport officials spotted a constant theme from those who engaged in the process.
A desire for the airport to reflect a sense of place emerged from the feedback.
"People wanted to be sure that anybody who is coming through the airport knew where they were," said Bill Wyatt, director of the Salt Lake City International Airport. "They wanted the airport to reflect this place."
This inspired the artwork found inside and outside of the airport, including the large mountain sculpture outside of the airport and the canyon motifs inside Concourse A, representing the natural features found throughout Utah. A similar art feature is being installed inside Concourse B as part of a project to expand the facility.
The airport's central tunnel — set to open in October — will carry the theme even further. Salt Lake City International Airport officials offered a sneak peek of the 1,175-foot-long "river tunnel" that will soon connect Concourse A to Concourse B, cutting some of the travel time for people flying out of the second concourse.
Construction crews swung open a pair of security doors Wednesday morning to reveal the enchanting and extremely blue art feature that aims to symbolize the water that flows between the canyon walls of Utah's natural landscape and inside the airport.
Inside the river tunnel
Salt Lake City International Airport's "river tunnel" features blue fabric on the ceiling and parts of the walls, replicating the flow of water and the wavy canyon pattern found in the concourses on each side of the tunnel. Large LED-box lighting features are placed on the ceiling of the tunnel to replicate the natural light above the water, flowing above sparkling blue terrazzo flooring.
Gordon Huether, who has designed most of the airport's artwork, isn't quite sure what type of hue he and airport officials settled on, but he says the initial concept was a bit "darker and moodier" before staff "started freaking out a little bit" about it. The art project only took about three weeks to install, a fraction of the whole tunnel project.
"This is where we landed because this is what made the most sense," he said. "It totally ties into the canyon."
Speakers will be placed throughout the tunnel that will play nearly 100 mostly water-themed songs, ranging from artists like Talking Heads, Sade, Post Malone and the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, as part of the experience.
While the art piece is now in place, the tunnel isn't complete just yet. Crews will spend the next few months working to connect both ends to the airport's two concourses.
Yet airport officials believe it will address what people want in the airport when the feature opens on Oct. 22.
"What people will come to see when everything is done is that this all connects us all to this place in a special way," Wyatt said.
A challenging project
The tunnel could solve one of the biggest complaints since the new airport opened, too — "the walk" between Concourse A and Concourse B. Wyatt said the new tunnel takes about three minutes to walk and eliminates the need for people to walk halfway through Concourse A just to reach the only tunnel that connects the two concourses.
The first tunnel was built about 20 years ago — well before any of the other airport construction — but it wasn't intended to be the primary tunnel connecting the two structures. However, construction of the central tunnel couldn't begin until the old airport was demolished since it's located beneath the old Concourse D.
That hasn't been the only constraint. Crews had to excavate all the land for the tunnel because the area's unique terrain and higher water table — plus existing infrastructure — made it impossible to bore like most tunnels are constructed, said Julito Ganchero, who has overseen the development of the tunnel and Concourse B expansion.
The project began in 2021 and took about two years just to clear out the space for the tunnel. And since the tunnel people will travel through is about 26 feet underground — deeper than the water table — the project required an intricate design to keep out leaks, something that impacted the older tunnel last month.
Work was also done to cancel out the noise and vibrations caused by aircraft that travel on the apron above the tunnel.
"There (were) so many challenges that we had to overcome as we built the structure," Ganchero said.
In all, nearly 33 miles of steel piles were used to support the structure, while 3,825 tons of rebar and 48,118 cubic yards of concrete were also used for reinforcement. The tunnel's volume is over 2.2 million cubic feet, which could hold about 25 Olympic-sized swimming pools if it were filled up by an actual river.
The project cost about $80 million altogether, including $5.5 million for the art installation. It's part of the third and fourth phases of construction that airport officials planned to cover through bonds that would be repaid through various airport revenues, such as landing fees, terminal rentals and other fees that airlines pay the airport.
The 'beginning of the end' of construction
Wyatt views the central tunnel as a major turning point in the decadelong construction of the new airport. Once it's finished, Concourse B will command the entire focus of ongoing airport construction. That project is expected to be completed over the next few years.
"I think when this opens, it will be the beginning of the end," he said. "We can see our way to the finish line."
What passengers won't see beginning on Oct. 22 is a massive and empty tunnel to the east of "the river." This is an area set aside for a train that will be installed once the airport begins work on a third concourse.
It's not clear when that will happen because the project will begin when the airport reaches 35 million annual passengers, about 8 million more than last year's record volume. Wyatt says current trends have the airport reaching the trigger threshold by the early 2030s, but he also cautions that airline travel can fluctuate depending on business and economic factors.
So time will only tell when any train service will begin.
