Not all Berger design services focus on new facilities. The renovation or adaptive reuse of historic structures can be equally or even more gratifying.

Within two years of its opening in 1928, Newark Airport was the world’s busiest commercial airport. At that time, the primary user of such facilities was the U.S. Postal Service. As the eastern air terminus for the Postal Service and its location only nine miles from Manhattan’s Central Post Office, the Federal Civil Works Administration commissioned a $700,000 passenger and mail terminal facility at the north end of the airport. This Art Deco structure was considered the most modern facility of its kind when opened in 1935, intended for use by hundreds of thousands of passengers annually to take advantage of an airport equipped with the most advanced aeronautical technology.

Situated at the end of the world’s first hard-surfaced runway, the facility was dedicated by the famed aviator, Amelia Earhart. Other aviation firsts introduced with this new building included the nation’s first airport hotel and restaurant and the world’s first air traffic control tower. These notable achievements and the integral role Newark played in establishing air service earned the building designation as a National Historic Landmark.

Unfortunately, placement at the end of the runway imperiled the future of the building despite its Landmark status. By 1951 airport activity had grown past the capacity of the original terminal building, and it was supplanted by a newer, more modern facility. Airfield regulations also changed, and the early site advantages proved a liability; the building was located in the safety zone of Runway 22R, and therefore could no longer be occupied.

A study of the adaptive reuse of the facility recommended relocation of the 34,000-square-foot structure as part of a new 96,000-square-foot Administration and Air Rescue Fire Fighting facility (ARFF). The site for the new Administration Building was almost three-quarters of a mile from the Building 51 location, but the structure of the historic building—timber pile supported reinforced concrete frame with brick fill-in walls along the exterior perimeter—was deemed robust enough to withstand the stress of such a move.

To protect the facility, the Berger team split the wing-shaped terminal into three sections, cut it free from its foundation, and moved it in pieces to the new location.

For the moving contractor, International Chimney of Buffalo, NY, the wings were relatively small, in terms of moving structures. Coupled with the wide expanse of pavement offered by the airfield, the contractor, acclaimed for moving the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, devised an innovative method to expedite the move. Rather than straight line moving, the building was “steered” through a series of arcs. The efficiency was startling—the first section move, scheduled to take a week, was completed in ten hours.

Moving the center portion of the terminal proved more difficult. This building section had overall dimensions of 60 feet x 220 feet, consisting mostly of two stories, with two small, one-story areas on either side of the control tower. The overall dead weight of this section was approximately 4,400 tons, not including the weight of the temporary support steel. While not the heaviest structure ever moved, it was the heaviest moved on rubber-tired dollies. The new steering method was employed to reduce the move duration from three weeks to one. However, the most difficult portion of this move was to properly locate the large number of dollies under the structure, while trying to keep the load within its safe capacity.

The relocation and reuse of Building 51 provided the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey with the opportunity to salvage a critically important part of Newark heritage and to showcase it as a centerpiece of the modern complex designed to house the Administration, Police and ARFF facility.

Berger, in association with Ammann & Whitney, provided architectural conditions review and expansion designs for the new facility within Building 1. The new facility, incorporating the historic passenger terminal was designed under an accelerated schedule to improve airport operations efficiency and reduce ground related delays.

New York Construction News.

Best of 2001 Award of Merit Renovation Project Relocation of Building 51 at Newark airport.