Lambert Airport's Terminal 1 Entrances Get Makeovers

Lambert-St. Louis International Airport began work this week on a $695,000 project to overhaul two Terminal 1 entrances.

The Good Friday tornado badly damaged both entrance ways in 2011 and created an opportunity to redesign the terminal’s lower level entrances, airport officials said.

The airport, which is minutes from Hazelwood, plans to build all-glass enclosed walkways that will provide natural light to the walkways and baggage claim area below. St. Louis-based C. Rallo Contracting Co. Inc. is the contractor for the project.

Eastman Chemical Co., which acquired St. Louis-based Solutia this summer, will provide the glass panels for the walkway. The company’s glass panels were also used in the replacement glass for the Terminal 1 vaulted curtain walls on the upper level, which were also damaged during the tornado.

Insurance funds are financing the project along with "the support of Eastman Chemical Co.," the airport said.

The project is part of the airport's $22 million tornado restoration campaign. The airport said it's also in the final months of its $70 million Airport Experience Program. The program is an interior renovation of Terminal 1, which was built in 1956, and its concourses.

The airport expects the project to be completed by spring of 2013.