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PASSENGER TRANSPORT    
September 2026      AirportImprovement.com
GRR
Gerald R. Ford International 
Airport (GRR) in Grand Rapids, 
MI, debuted a consolidated rental 
car facility (CONRAC) in early June and is 
enjoying all the usual benefits: less traffic 
around the terminal, lower levels of vehicle 
emissions and more convenience for rental 
customers. But the $156 million facility is 
also helping the airport remedy a shortage 
of public long-term parking.
Previously, rental vehicles occupied 
one-half of the first floor in its long-term 
parking garage. Now, those vehicles are 
parked in the new CONRAC, which opens 
up 700 coveted ground-level spaces. 
“Overall, we’re 
about 1,100 spaces 
short of demand for 
close-in and covered 
long-term parking,” 
explains Casey 
Ries, chief asset 
development officer 
at GRR. “We want to 
build a six-story parking garage on our 
north long-term surface parking lot, but 
we can’t do that because it would create 
line-of-sight restrictions for the air traffic 
control tower. So our compromise was 
building the CONRAC.”
The new facility consolidates all seven 
rental car brands operating at the airport 
into one building connected to the 
terminal, giving customers easier access 
and streamlining pickups and returns. 
Built on a former surface parking lot just 
east of the terminal, the 750,000-square-
foot facility has three interconnected 
components: a four-story customer 
service building, a five-story garage where 
customers pick up and return vehicles, 
and a three-story quick-turnaround garage 
where rental vehicles are cleaned and 
refueled for subsequent use. 
The customer service building connects 
to the terminal’s baggage claim area via 
a second-floor, 400-foot-long pedestrian 
bridge. 
“We are proud to be the first airport in 
Michigan to have a consolidated rental 
car facility, showing our commitment to 
providing the best customer experience 
we can,” GRR President and Chief 
Executive Officer Tory Richardson said 
in a news release. “This new facility 
will support our forecasted passenger 
demand over the next 20 years, while 
having an immediate positive impact on 
both our guests and rental car partners.”
The project was funded with municipal 
bonds backed by Kent County, which 
owns the airport. The airport will use 
customer facility charges on car rental 
transactions to repay the bonds. 
A third-party company, MVI Field 
Services, manages the facility for the 
rental car companies.
Major Advantages
The new CONRAC offers several significant 
benefits for the state’s second-busiest 
airport. 
For starters, there’s convenience, safety 
and comfort. Customers no longer have 
to cross a busy roadway to reach their 
rental vehicles, and the climate-controlled 
skybridge protects them from bad 
weather, which is especially appreciated 
during Michigan’s cold winters. 
Previously, rental car companies had 
to shuttle vehicles returned at the airport 
about 1½ miles to remote facilities for 
New CONRAC at Gerald R. Ford Int’l Benefits 
More Than Just Car Rental Customers BY KEN WYSOCKY
CASEY RIES

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