Story

The exclusive Capital One Landing lounge is located at National Hall and D-Gate in Ronald Reagan National Airport. There are two separate spaces in the lounge – the dining area and the quick service bar. The quick service offers Grab’n’Go style food, coffee, and snacks while the dining area offers a full-service menu and dining experience accessible only to Capital One card holders. The landing is composed mostly of white oak laminated millwork and different styles of tile. Banquette seating outlines the dining area with leather fabric upholstery and built in electrical outlets at all table spaces. There are two standard restrooms and one ADA family friendly restroom, all with specialty vanities from Italy and high-end tiling. The light fixtures in the dining room are one of the signature pieces of the landing and were quite challenging to install – regarding both safety and procedure. The fixtures are hanging woven baskets with lights on the inside – each individually wired to a large metal plate – there were a total of ten plates. The coordination of where to place each plate in the ceiling to align the baskets in the desired location and height, was like putting together a puzzle. Two of the greatest challenges on the job were delivering the steel for the patio canopy and working in the baggage handling area below the space for plumbing / electrical rough-in. The steel was delivered at night, requiring coordination with the airport to access the space through the North Security Checkpoint, with some pieces measuring 40’ in length. There was no time to spare and the steel was able to be moved into the space prior to the access being closed. Night work in the baggage handling area below was required in order to get the plumbing and electrical components installed. The baggage handling conveyor belts run each night until the last plane arrives, typically around 11:30pm but sometimes later, and comes back online at 3:30am. The option to work above the operating conveyor belts was deemed unsafe, so this only allowed no more than four hours to complete work each night, with the space being cleaned up and vacated by 3am. There were some nights no work was completed due to late flights and this posed several challenges to our schedule. Basically, the baggage handling work doubled in duration, which was made up for once work was started in the space. There were also significant coordination obstacles as this work was located under an existing lounge (The Admirals Club) and their associated piping. Installing the grease duct and makeup air unit (MAU) duct required unconventional thinking to meet grade and maintain necessary clearance for insulation and ceiling heights. In the end, everything came together after weekly onsite meetings with the architect, owner, and Turner, discussing obstacles and providing paths forward in real time.