As the busiest airport in Florida, flying around 40.3 million passengers a year, the Orlando International Airport had commissioned a new terminal. Hensel-Phelps had contracted SkyBuilders USA to complete the new South Terminal C in hopes of expanding on the already vast airport. The goal was to provide a stucco system of more than 164,000 square feet for the new South C Terminal, carried out from September 2019 to May 2021. However, this goal was not going to be easy to achieve with its fair share of challenges being; unforeseen complications, design changes, and a pandemic.
One of these complications had been questioning the integrity of the metal build panels by the Orlando Airport Authority. They wanted to sift through the possibility of converting the walls into stucco cladding over various insulations. The tricky part about this is the unfamiliarity the building industry has with this specific system and this large of a project dealing with insulation covered in hard-coat stucco. This is where SkyBuilders USA comes in, with the request by Hensel Phelps to “source and build submittals for this continuously insulated stucco. Because this was new territory, SkyBuilders USA reached out to ClarkDietrich to assist in this obstacle.
With the help of ClarkDietrich and Christopher Little, who said that SkyBuilder’s USA Insulated stucco systems “to this day work without defects” was able to examine this insulation. This examination was able to determine whether or not the insulation fit the prospective Florida Building Code. Once ClarkDietrich’s engineering personnel were able to analyze the system, it was submitted for approval and ultimately approved.
Due to the scope of this project, it became apparent how important it would be to include other vendors/partners and work together cohesively. For instance, The Quikette company provided professional-grade pre-blended fibered stucco for the installation, delivering a high-performance cladding finish. With both the right material and the right installation, the walls were able to withstand extreme weather. A large step forward for the project, a project that Lupe Garcia from The Quirkette company said SkyBuilders USA had “solutions and experience to handle the unexpected with quick solutions’”.
Moreover, this only furthered the success of this $4.1 billion expansion for the Orlando International Airport. The project for South Terminal C includes the addition of 15 more gates able to accommodate up to 20 aircraft that filter through 10-12 million passengers a year in this terminal alone. Through it, all the dedication to deliver a successful project had been executed and proved that SkyBuilders USA does in fact “go beyond the limits”.