When handed the keys to a rental car, you rarely stop to think about how — or where — that car was cleaned, fueled and made ready for your use.
On March 7,, the Port of Portland and project partners celebrate the opening of the $67 million Quick Turnaround (QTA) project at the Portland International Airport. This new building is where your rental vehicle is made ready for you, housing the fueling, washing and on-site storage for rental cars.
The newly-completed building — on your left when exiting the PDX parking plaza, or departing from the terminal roadway — is home to an operation that is key in helping the rental car companies deliver top-notch customer service to airport travelers renting vehicles by quickly providing cleaned, fueled cars ready for use.
At three times the size of the previous facility, the new QTA offers employees working therein more efficient work space and improves rental car processing operations. At peak shifts, 220 rental car employees can work to clean and fuel 430 cars per hour.
Designed to minimize its impact on our water resources, the facility has an on-site well and a highly efficient reclaim system designed to reuse car wash water and capture more than 2 million gallons of harvested rainwater, allowing the QTA’s car washes to operate without the use of any municipal water. Additionally, LED lighting is used throughout the building, and, an adaptive monitoring system is in place which will help manage energy usage based on time of day and time of year.
Pursuing certification under the Envision rating system — a program recognizing sustainable design practices for infrastructure design, construction and operation — the two-story QTA hopes to become the largest Envision-certified project in Oregon.
The Quick Turnaround facility is the first large infrastructure project completed under PDXNext, a suite of capital projects that will make the airport better for travelers and employees. The PDXNext projects will allow PDX to modernize infrastructure and meet the growing needs of the people using the airport. These planning and construction projects, occurring now through 2025, represent a more than $2 billion investment in the airport.
For the QTA, Mackenzie provided architecture and interior design; structural, civil and traffic engineering; land use and transportation planning; and landscape architecture professional services. PAE Engineers were the mechanical/electrical/plumbing designers. TranSystems provided design services for the rental car processing concept. Stantec provided design services for the QTA’s fueling stations, car wash, and other process-related systems. Hoffman Construction was the general contractor. Several MWESB firms were engaged and received contracts above the targeted project goal.
PDX’s Quick Turn Around Facility by the numbers:
- $67 million – total budget for the project, including enabling work
- 2.83 million – gallons of rainwater to be harvested annually from the top deck
- 316,000 – the size of the facility, in square feet, including the upper and lower levels
- 840 – vehicles can be stored on the second-floor deck
- 430 – cars can be fueled/cleaned per hour
- 220 – employees working in the building at peak shift
- 175 – vehicles can queue for fueling
- 72 – fueling positions
- 16 – individual car wash bays
