As a means to relieve pressure on the Baltimore-Washington International Airport’s on-site parking facilities, the Maryland Aviation Administration embarked on an off-site parking expansion program which includes this 1915-stall increase at the nearby Amtrak / Marc rail station. The facility serves both commuters and intercity train passengers, as well as airport users. A future people mover connecting this facility with the airport terminal was planned as part of this parking project.

Because an outside agency was procuring design and construction services on its facility, the State of Maryland Mass Transit Administration, engaged DESMAN to act as their agent during the development of criteria documents and bidding to design-build contractors. DESMAN conducted a site visit to determine that the existing structure was suitable for vertical expansion, reviewed existing documents related to planned on-site facilities, reviewed construction phasing plans, reviewed parking functional layout plans and developed alternate functional layouts, reviewed engineer’s cost estimates, developed exterior aesthetic, and reviewed the developed program, technical specification and bid form.

DESMAN’s contributions to this successful project included implementation of a double helix style ramping system in the new parking facility to speed entering and exiting traffic, changing the garages ingress/egress points to eliminate conflicts with the station pedestrian traffic, increasing the project budget due to a rapidly changing marketplace, and implementation of a cast-in-place structural system alternate into the bid package, which was ultimately constructed.