Denver Airport -- Construction History: Budgets Delays and the Buried Buildings
Denver Airport -- Construction History: Budgets Delays and the Buried Buildings
[edit | edit source]The Decision to Build
[edit | edit source]Between 1980 and 1983, the Denver Regional Council of Governments studied six potential sites for a new metropolitan airport to replace the aging and noise-constrained Stapleton International Airport, which had opened in 1929 and was increasingly unsuitable for the growth of Denver's aviation needs. The chosen site -- 24 miles northeast of downtown Denver in Adams County on the open prairie -- was controversial from the start. Its remoteness was noted by skeptics; its proponents argued it provided the space needed for a world-class facility.
In 1988, then-Mayor Federico Peña negotiated a deal: Adams County voters would approve the annexation of 54 square miles to Denver, enabling the new airport to be built away from established neighborhoods. The annexation vote passed. Peña's campaign promise "Imagine a Great City" became associated with the airport project.
In May 1989, Denver voters approved the DEN construction plan. Ground was broken in September 1989. The initial conceptual cost estimate was $1.34 billion (1988); the first formal construction budget in May 1990 was set at $2.08 billion.
The Budget Explosions
[edit | edit source]| Date | Estimated/Actual Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1988 | $1.34 billion | Initial conceptual estimate |
| May 1990 | $2.08 billion | First formal construction budget |
| Early 1993 | $2.72 billion | After scope additions: widened concourses ($250M); initial baggage system ($200M); other changes ($170M) |
| February 1994 | $2.92 billion | Another $220M increase; cargo area moved from north to south side; airline-driven improvements |
| Final (1995) | $4.8 billion | Final cost at opening; equivalent to approximately $9 billion as of 2024; approximately 2.7 times original budget; $915M in capitalized interest alone from the 16-month delay |
The Automated Baggage System Disaster
[edit | edit source]The single largest cause of DEN's cost overruns and delay was the automated baggage handling system -- arguably the most expensive and most embarrassing failure in American airport history.
The system was designed by BAE Automated Systems and was intended to be the most sophisticated baggage handling system ever built: a network of computer-controlled carts running at up to 19 mph on 21 miles of tracked pathways beneath the airport, automatically routing luggage from check-in to aircraft and back to baggage claim. United Airlines had made the system a condition of moving to the new airport. The system would eventually connect three concourses.
The problems were catastrophic from the first demonstration:
- Software could not coordinate the volume of carts
- Carts collided with each other regularly
- Bags were tossed from carts during high-speed manoeuvres
- Personal items were scattered across the track system
- The May 1994 media preview was described by reporters as a disaster: torn clothing and personal effects strewn beneath the tracks
The mayor cancelled the planned opening after the preview. The airport absorbed $1.1 million per day in debt service costs during the delay. The system was eventually reduced to serving only outbound United Airlines flights from Concourse B -- a fraction of its intended scope. It was permanently decommissioned in September 2005, at which point traditional manual baggage handling was installed.
The Five Buried Buildings
[edit | edit source]During construction, several buildings that had been partially or fully constructed were found to be incorrectly positioned or built to incorrect specifications. Rather than demolishing and removing the structures, contractors buried them in place, filling them with earth and building over them. This is standard construction practice for projects of this scale and complexity.
Conspiracy theorists seized on this fact immediately. The argument: why would you bury completed buildings unless you intended to use them for something? The buried structures became the foundation for claims of a six-story underground complex, secret bunkers, and alien habitation zones.
The honest explanation: on a construction project of DEN's complexity, using approximately 11,000 workers and hundreds of contractors simultaneously, positional errors leading to buried misconstructions are not extraordinary. The buildings were not usable as airports structures; removing them was expensive and impractical; burial was the most cost-effective solution. No underground habitation has been found in any of these buried structures during the numerous media and official tours conducted since the airport's opening.
Wellington Webb and the Inherited Disaster
[edit | edit source]When Mayor Federico Peña left office in 1991, his successor Mayor Wellington Webb inherited a construction project already significantly over budget and behind schedule. Webb pressed forward, navigating the bond rating crisis (the rating agencies dropped the airport's bonds toward junk status due to the delays), the federal investigations, and the media circus. His decision to open the airport with the failed baggage system serving only one concourse -- rather than waiting indefinitely for the full system to function -- was ultimately the pragmatic resolution that ended the delay.
