Designing Lambert as a Regional Gateway

The future of Lambert lies as a regional gateway for flights originating in airports such as Northwest Arkansas, Oklahoma City, Des Moines, Witchita, and Indianapolis. To become an alternate gateway Lambert has to employ design to do a better job capitalizing on its 30+ direct destinations and its manageable size. Removing concourse C provides an opportunity to do just that.

The tornado of April 22, 2011 rendered Lambert’s concourse C inoperable. In the immediate aftermath Lambert was forced to re-open concourse D, the mothballed terminal for TWA and Ozark Airlines. The airport’s current plan is to use potentially $100 million in insurance money to rebuild Concourse C and then deactivate Concourse D., although rumors abound that Concourse C is now structurally unsound and will have to be demolished, current damage assessments have not confirmed this to be true.