The $77 million facility at William P. Hobby Airport, including a new 374,000 square foot, 20-gate Central Concourse for Southwest Airlines, was a combination of new construction and retrofitting of an existing central chiller plant deep within the baggage service area of the existing airport. Cobb Mechanical was responsible for removing all of the chiller room equipment and piping from the existing central plant and then installing new chillers and piping, as well as the HVAC and plumbing services serving the new central concourse. Cobb Mechanical and Morganti Group, Inc., the General Contractor on the project, were faced with challenging phasing and access problems because the new concourse was located in the middle of three operating concourses at Hobby Airport in Houston, TX. The first phase involved starting the central plant and opening 5 gates in the new concourse, the second involved the demolition of existing concourses and the third, the completion of the remaining 15 gates in the new concourse.

Project Specifications:
This project included adding 47 new Air Handling Units, ranging in size from 1000 CFM to over 46,000 CFM in size, and four new chillers totaling nearly 4000 tons of cooling along with their associated pumps and piping. The existing cooling tower’s capacity was also upgraded to cool 8,000 gallons of condenser water per minute. Over 175 plumbing fixtures, most with automatic electronic valves, serve the restrooms in the new concourse.
The HVAC of the new 374,000 square foot concourse was accomplished primarily with large air handling units feeding numerous VAV diffusers, along with smaller air handling units serving the tenant spaces and the baggage handling area.