In response to significant traffic growth, Norfolk International Airport (ORF) has undertaken a major initiative to enhance customer parking and improve its efficiency. With just short of 5 million annual passengers projected by the end of 2024, the Virginia airport is addressing its current parking capacity while laying the groundwork for future expansion. Strategic upgrades totaling $72 million include a new 3,200-space parking garage, resurfacing of the East Lot, a garage space availability measurement system and a new Park and Wait Lot. These projects are part of a $1 billion capital improvement program to transform the airport over the next five to six years.
In 2022, the airport surpassed the 4 million passenger mark for the first time and then served more than 4.5 million passengers in 2023. Through November 2024, ORF was on track to exceed 4.9 million passengers—an increase of nearly 25% in just three years. “We expect that growth to continue, and with that, we’ve had a huge demand in parking,” says ORF President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Perryman.
Although the airport is in an urban setting, it has a distinct lack of public transportation. With no rail, light rail or bus service, many travelers arrive in private vehicles—thus, the need for more parking as airside traffic continues to grow.
 facts&figures
Project: Parking Improvements Location: Norfolk Int’l Airport, in VA Parking Garage Space Cost: $1.2 million Parking Garage D Cost: $68 million East Lot Resurfacing Cost: $650,000 Park & Wait Lot Cost: $2 million |
To complete Garage D, ORF selected Gresham Smith for architectural design and Hourigan for construction; Baker Concrete Construction was instrumental in the cast-in-place concrete project. EnSight Technologies and FAAC Parking Solutions (HUB Parking Technology) were brought in to implement an advanced AI-based parking guidance and occupancy management system throughout the airport’s four parking garages (A, B, C and D) and the East surface lot. ORF partnered with Excel Paving Corp. for the resurfacing of the East Lot and Compo Construction for the Park & Wait Lot.
Designing the New Structure
The airport’s newly constructed Garage D opened in late 2022 with 3,200 parking spaces spread across nine levels. Spanning more than 1.1 million square feet, it is the largest parking facility at ORF and significantly boosted total parking capacity to approximately 10,000 spaces. The garage cost $68 million.
Gresham Smith crafted the structure’s design to blend with existing airport buildings, which include precast elements and a focus on symmetry, order and repetition. “The goal with the new garage was to contribute to the cohesive exterior campus aesthetic to make it look like it may have all been built at once,” explains
Matt Amos, project manager with Gresham Smith.
The garage is a cast-in-place structure with architectural precast panels. By minimizing the variety of panel types, the design team reduced costs and maintained a cohesive aesthetic. Although the cast-in-place construction had a higher upfront cost than a precast structure, ORF expects to save on long-term maintenance costs.
The garage’s form is symmetrical with Garage A, located to the north; both structures share a similar nine-level design with a double-threaded helix for vertical circulation. “Rather than being a segregated element, the double-threaded helix was formed into the building’s west façade, giving that elevation a more monumental and modern appearance and emulating movement and fluidity,” Amos remarks.
The modern garage includes inset vertical stairwells with glass exterior walls that create openness and, more importantly, enhance patron safety by maintaining sightlines and illuminating concealed spaces. Traditional fluted panels atop the previous garage were replaced with panels consistent with the rest of the structure. Finally, the garage’s helix structures feature upturned beams at the perimeter, creating a unique, full-height flat ceiling without the traditional lowered perimeter beams.
During peak seasons, like spring break 2024, available parking was less than 10%, even with the newly added capacity. Thankfully, the design of Garage D and other enabling projects at ORF have positioned the airport to add further parking infrastructure. The garage design allows the airport to add up to three bays laterally through knockout wall components—without building another helix.
Garage D features 90-degree 9×18-foot parking spaces and two-way 24-foot-wide drive aisles. “These features make the garage much more maneuverable for drivers,” Amos comments. “As such, it’s been noted that the garage seems to attract regulars with larger trucks and SUVs.”
The design includes 360-degree sightlines and digital signage to help guide drivers to available spaces. The double-threaded helix structure also facilitates smooth traffic flow. “It just makes coming in and off of each level so much easier,” notes ORF Parking Manager Cathy Sutherland.
The garage’s ADA-compliant spaces near entrances have dedicated pathways for accessibility. The structure is also attached to the Arrivals Terminal on two levels, at and above its baggage carousels, allowing passengers to collect their checked luggage and take elevators to their respective parking levels. A canopy over the entrance terminals protects travelers from rain. “We [previously] had a significant issue with patrons getting drenched anytime they had to roll down their window to pull tickets,” Sutherland recalls.
The airport’s previous garages had high-intensity discharge lighting. In the new garage, LED fixtures with light-harvesting sensors around the perimeter and occupancy sensors inside automatically dim when there is enough natural light or when areas are unoccupied. The ceilings were also finished in bright white to reflect more light.
Several parking spaces are equipped with charging stations for electric vehicles, and columns on the top floor are stubbed to accommodate a potential solar panel roofing system.
Counting System
One significant technological upgrade is the system that counts available spaces in the parking garages. The airport’s previous system used in-ground loop sensors, which were inaccurate and frustrated customers. The new $1.2 million vision-based machine learning system, installed in October 2024, provides real-time information about space availability by garage and level across all of ORF’s parking garages. The system uses advanced technology developed by EnSight Technologies that includes more than 100 cameras to track the occupancy of each parking space in real time. “We’re excited about that, and it just really helps prevent your patrons from swimming like sharks—circulating through,” Sutherland remarks.
The system’s cameras use vision-based machine learning to detect and count vehicles, providing precise, real-time data to digital signs in the garages to help travelers find a parking space. Machine learning improves efficiency by using information captured over time. “We have the ability to make it smarter over time and retrain and then validate when we make updates or upgrades of the system,” says Chris Scheppmann, chief executive officer of EnSight Technologies.
The system also integrates with AeroParker, ORF’s parking reservation platform since December 2021. “Reservations are sent instantly to the HUB system and customers are identified by a QR code at the entrance and exit,” explains Alan Daring, vice president of business development with AeroParker. Daring reports that annual reservations at ORF have grown by 260% since the launch of AeroParker, accounting for 9% of parking revenue, and continue to grow.
Scheppmann notes that this synergy benefits customers who pre-book their parking. “When they get there [to the airport], they can understand the best and fastest area of the garages or the surface lot to find available parking so they can make their flight and start their journey off seamlessly,” he explains.
ORF plans to display real-time information about parking availability on the airport’s website in early 2025, adding further efficiency for all parkers. This will allow travelers to check for space in every lot and garage.
Cameras track the occupancy of each parking space in real time.
PHOTO: NORFOLK INT’L AIRPORT
Loyalty Rewards
The airport’s Parking Perks program awards 1 point per $1 spent, redeemable for rewards like parking discounts ($5 off after spending $100), swag bags, sports tickets and more. With 24,000 users and 64,000 bookings since launching in July 2022, the Parking Perks program has been deemed a success. “It’s really interesting—the discounts, while customers appreciate them, seem secondary to the other side of it, watching their points grow and being enrolled for these prizes and things,” Sutherland observes. “They’re just really into it.”
The airport marketing team uses monthly promotions and limited-time offers to engage participants and encourage early reservations to help manage peak demand.
The ability to flex pricing and offer discounts for early bookings or off-peak periods allows passengers to secure great deals while the airport optimizes asset utilization, Daring says. “Ultimately, the stress-free experience of a reservation system fosters passenger satisfaction and reinforces a positive perception of the airport.”
Congestion Relief
ORF’s new $2 million Park and Wait Lot, which fully opened on Dec. 19, 2024, aims to ease curbside congestion during peak arrival times. Previously, the cellphone lot was farther from the terminal, so drivers would often loop around the airport waiting for arriving passengers instead of using the cellphone lot. Strategically located just a few hundred feet from Baggage Claim, the new Park and Wait Lot undoubtedly offers drivers a more convenient option. That said, refinements are still in the works. ORF plans to educate passengers to wait until collecting luggage before texting or calling their drivers. “It’s that close, that fast,” Sutherland raves. “We’re going to have to figure out creative ways to try to delay that notification until they get their luggage, because it is literally 30 seconds from that text to where you meet them, which is amazing.”
The project team engineered the new garage to blend with existing structures, including another nearby garage.
Situated along the main path drivers take to pick up passengers, the new lot includes 80 spaces and was designed with intuitive entrance and exit points. “It’s in the natural flow of where you go to pick up your arriving passenger,” says ORF executive Perryman.
Site preparations for the new Park and Wait Lot were complicated by local wildlife. Crews had to time the clearing of trees to avoid disrupting long-eared bats that nest in the area. The team completed that work in three to four weeks, finishing by April 15, 2024, to protect the bats during migration and comply with state regulations.
In addition to clearing trees for the project site, crews also removed aging trees prone to lightning strikes. “It was opportune timing to clear the trees because [they] could have become a safety concern or hazard,” notes Ashley Sumner, project manager overseeing ORF’s Capital Improvement Program.
Pavement Work
A $650,000 project to resurface the long-term East Lot, completed in October 2024, improved one of the airport’s oldest and most frequently used surface lots. Responding to years of complaints about its condition, ORF improved the 900-space lot by milling, resurfacing half of the pavement and restriping to improve safety.
The half that remains unimproved will be used for contractor parking. “As our footprint grows, we have less availability for that,” Sumner comments. “So, we’ve been looking for alternatives of how we can set ourselves up for success in future projects.”
Challenges and Opportunities
The various parking improvement projects required careful planning to meet growing customer needs while minimizing disruptions. Airport management fast-tracked the Park and Wait Lot with simultaneous design and construction to meet various deadlines, including the need to accommodate the long-eared bat migration. Despite labor shortages and contractor scheduling challenges, the project team managed to finish in time for the busy holiday travel period.
Construction of the new Garage D was difficult because of its location and constrained nature of the project site, but Sutherland reports that those hurdles were cleared, too. “To me, it just went brilliantly,” she remarks. “When you really look at the space constraints and the area that it had to be dropped in—right up against the terminal, right up against our main exit plaza—the challenges that presented themselves were certainly understandable.”
Naturally, safety was a focus for the contractor, Hourigan. Bart Dexter, vice president of the company’s Hampton Roads Business Unit, notes that the constant movement of people and vehicles required special vigilance. “We needed to make sure from that challenge, that we had our logistics squared away, that the site was safe,” says Dexter. Using two tower cranes required constant attention to proper barricades, signage and egress to ensure safety for workers and the public.
Onsite challenges during the project included a high water table requiring well points, precise elevation coordination with the Arrivals Terminal and careful digging to protect vital communication utilities.
Designers faced challenges trying to integrate an existing stairway and elevator tower with misaligned floor elevations due to sloped garage floors. Plans to modernize the structure were complicated by the tower’s slight shift over time. “After 15 years, the tower had come somewhat out of plumb, and it was determined that a full replacement of all three elevators was more appropriate,” Amos remarks. The new garage was built with split elevations on the lowest two levels to accommodate the floor heights, tying into an existing building with a partially underground base, requiring significant waterproofing and dewatering during construction.
EnSight Technologies helped minimize costs by reusing existing digital signage. To do so, it gathered network and configuration details and integrated cameras to ensure accurate content. The project team needed to balance installation of the new system with ongoing operation of the existing one to avoid disruptions for patrons. Full configuration, testing and transition is going live in January 2025. The two systems run side-by-side while technicians validate the new system and EnSight plans the cutover process.
The airport repaved and restriped one of its oldest and most popular surface lots.
While Garage D was being built, a fourth entrance lane was added to the main garage entrance to increase flexibility during construction. While this change had some impact on the project, Sutherland says proactive signage and staff deployment ensured smooth traffic flow and guidance for patrons.
The East Lot resurfacing project enabled and helped maintain progress on other developments, including the Park and Wait Lot. About 450 parking spaces in the East Lot will now provide parking and storage space for contractors. “The resurfacing really enabled us to continue our progress and momentum and not have us reexamine our schedules to when we can actually start and accomplish the other projects that are on the horizon,” Sumner says.
A Learning Experience
Sumner reports that with upcoming large-scale improvements, the airport is moving away from traditional low-bid design-build projects and instead following a construction manager-at-risk approach. This will allow for earlier involvement of construction teams, enabling better planning around phasing, scheduling and costs, she explains. “That’s been helping us think and feel more comfortable with these larger projects and our expectations of how they’ll align especially with the constant schedule.”
Amos, from Gresham Smith, counsels airports to consider the impact of interim reductions in parking capacity from construction and material storage. This may include building on top of existing surface lots or expanding existing parking garages vertically or horizontally. “In each case, you will lose parking before gaining any new,” he says.
Scheppmann, from EnSight Technologies, focuses on matching technology systems to an airport’s particular needs. In ORF’s case, intelligent cameras were placed at key entry and interchange points to provide real-time level count data without requiring much infrastructure. If ORF had chosen a single-space parking guidance system, sensors or cameras for each parking space or every few spaces would have been required—with added infrastructure cost. “It’s right sizing the technology, understanding how much information you want to get and give to parkers, and then understanding from a budgetary perspective, what is the right solution?” Scheppmann says.
According to Daring, from AeroParker, travelers expect services such as online reservation systems and will park off-site if they can’t get them at the airport. “You can always begin with a pilot program for one parking lot or area to test and optimize before a full rollout,” he comments. “It is important to prioritize simplicity, ensuring the system is intuitive for all users.” He suggests choosing a proven technology partner with features like dynamic pricing, loyalty programs and system compatibility. Make sure to offer flexible options, promote benefits through digital channels and track performance to optimize and stay competitive, he adds.
Dexter, from Hourigan, emphasizes the importance of early coordination. “Engage as early as possible with the end user, design partners and construction company to map out the expectations, pain points and master planning of the construction, duration and sequencing of work,” he advises.
Preparation is another major key to success, Sutherland adds. “It’s not if weird things are going to happen; it’s when,” she says. With the parking projects, ORF was proactive with ample signage and a plan to minimize the impact on patrons. “I think that served us very, very well,” Sutherland notes. “Preparing our team to come to work every day, ready to deal with something you’ve never dealt with before, with a project that size, and it just really allowed us to respond quicker and better—and keep as little of it public-facing as possible,” she recalls.
The new garage has nine levels and 3,200 much-needed spaces.
Beyond preparation, Perryman says thinking long-term is another key to planning large-scale projects. “Don’t do what’s easy. Do what’s right—even if it means it’s going to be a little bit more difficult,” he says. “Now that’s okay, because it’s going to make things better longer term.”
On Deck
Several other projects are in the queue for ORF’s $1 billion capital improvement program. A consolidated rental car facility is expected to be a game-changer for both airport operations and the passenger experience. Currently, rental car agencies use two levels in the parking garage closest to the bridge leading from all passenger gates, and rental car revenue is maxed out due to capacity constraints. The new consolidated rental car facility, expected to break ground in 2025, will provide up to 40% more capacity. In addition to centralizing all rental car agencies, it will free up 600 valuable spaces in Garage A and eliminate the need for shuttling rental vehicles to and from offsite cleaning and maintenance facilities. “[That] will give us more capacity for parking patrons, and it also solves some other bigger issues that we have in terms of ready return and getting cars turned around quickly for our rental passengers,” Perryman says.
Additionally, a larger terminal redevelopment project is set to add new gates, a consolidated TSA screening checkpoint, an expanded baggage handling area and a new U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility to accommodate more international flights. A new on-airport hotel is also in the works.
Airport leaders are counting on these initiatives to build on those already complete as ORF positions itself for future growth.
