A 24-foot-tall dogwood blossom sculpture, a garden of native and regional plants, and a new enclosed connector for the rental car garage are among projects totaling nearly $30 million that are being planned at Richmond International Airport as a way to make the facility greener, artsier and safer.
The sculpture, to be located at the base of the “V” in the V-shaped circular parking area between the North and South daily parking garages, would depict a Virginia dogwood branch rising from the ground with three attached dogwood flowers fanning out at the top. The dogwood is Virginia’s official state flower and tree.
The garden, which would replace a managers’ parking lot at the north end of the airport’s terminal, would be located on the way to the rental car garage and be part of a $25-million project that’s also slated to include a new direct entrance to the planned vertical closed connector to that garage. (The airport is relocating the rental car counters to an expanded north baggage claim area and building a two-level climate-controlled walkway between the new counters and the terminal.)…