Central De-icing Facility – Mass Grading Project

The mass grading project involved the construction of the embankment under the pavement area at the 835,000-square-foot Central De-icing Facility (CDF) at Chicago’s O'Hare International Airport. Located near the departure points of Runways 10L, 9R, and the future 9C, the state-of-the-art CDF improved safety and efficiency for more than 50 airlines serving O’Hare. The largest of its kind in the U.S., this facility also increased the efficiency of de-icing operations at individual gates, improved gate utilization and terminal capacity, eliminated secondary de-icing for departing planes, and enhanced runway safety while improving airfield operations. The de-icing pad can accommodate 20 narrow-body airplanes or five wide bodies at a time.

OHLA USA’s subsidiary, Judlau Contracting, executed the project in two parts. The first one required moving more than 2.2 million cubic yards of excavation to create the base for the CDF. The scope of work included excavation and heavy sorting/screening of stockpiled materials, grading, drainage, erosion control, and clearing and grubbing. The work also included the relocation of the concrete crushing yard and asphalt pile and crushing the material to the gradations indicated in the specifications.

The second part of the project involved the construction of the tollway embankment below the subgrade for the Elgin O'Hare Western Access Tollway ramp.