O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP)

Chicago, Illinois

DB Sterlin was a member of the team preparing the Master Civil Plan for the O’Hare Airport Modernization Program and had numerous individuals contributing surveying and engineering services to the project. The scope of services for this project consisted of a coordination of all land surveying services, including the establishment of horizontal and vertical controls, surveying of existing airport features, and the layout of new project features. Civil engineering services provided by DB Sterlin included project site planning, coordination of the EIS being developed by the FAA, validation of airport layout concepts developed by the City, roadway layouts, drainage designs, utility identification and layout, Digital Terrain Modeling for establishing new contours, balancing of earthwork quantities using Geopak, construction phasing, and preparation of outline specifications and over 100 drawings using Microstation V8.

The O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP) is one of the largest airport construction projects in the country at one of the world’s busiest airports and is managed by the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA). It is a multi-year, multi-phase program that will replace the intersecting runways with parallel runways to increase capacity, reduce delays, and meet future demands. The program to modernize the airfield at O’Hare International Airport has resulted in changes to the airfield layout at O’Hare to provide six parallel east-west runways and two crosswind runways.

In addition to the new runways, the project included new taxiways, terminal facilities, cargo facilities, roadways, aircraft bridges, highway bridges, and people-mover systems. Specific features of the Civil Master Plan that DB Sterlin planned and performed initial engineering on include the 2-mile-long North Perimeter Road and Security Fencing Project, the relocation of Willow-Higgins Creek, the South Airfield Access Road, and the Mount Prospect Road and Guard Post #1 and #12 Relocation Project.