About 500 new parking spaces will open Monday at Raleigh-Durham International Airport as RDU’s largest surface parking lot gets ever larger.
RDU is gradually tripling the size of its Park Economy 3 lot off Aviation Parkway. Nearly 1,700 new spaces opened in June, and more will come online in stages until the lot has about 11,000 spaces next summer.
Contractors have finished cutting more than 100 acres of trees and are nearly done grading the level surfaces for the pavement. The remote lot that was once obscured by forest is now partly visible from Interstate 40, particularly at night when the new LED lights are on.
In addition to more spaces, the larger Park Economy 3 will have features the old one did not. They include:
- A parking guidance system, similar to the one RDU installed in its parking decks more than a year ago. A message board at the main gate will indicate how many empty spaces are in each section, with additional signs at the entrance to the sections. That system should be ready by early next year.
- New covered walkways. The roofs over many of those walkways will be clad with solar panels that will provide much of the power needed to operate the parking lot.
- Electric vehicle chargers. RDU plans to install 100 Level 1 chargers for EVs in a section of the lot near the entrance. Level 1 is the slowest charger, which can take all day or more for a full charge, but it’s enough for travelers to return to a car that’s ready to go.
- Something RDU calls the “customer amenity building,” or CAB. It will have restrooms and vending machines for the public, as well as offices for airport law enforcement and parking staff and their equipment.
- Parking for oversize vehicles. A section of the existing lot will be remade into a special lot with 31 spaces for RVs and trucks with trailers.
The expansion will cost an estimated $164 million and includes rehabbing the existing 3,820 spaces. (As some of the new spaces open, older ones are closed for repaving.)…