Dive Brief:
- New York’s LaGuardia Airport has undertaken a six-year renovation project, partnering with lighting manufacturer Leviton to modernize Terminal B facilities.
- The renovations, which involve building a new terminal, are intended to meet rising passenger demand and energy code requirements.
- Leviton said its lighting control system is integrated with the terminal’s Building Management System, enabling it to avoid downtime and service interruptions despite multiple phases of the project.
Dive Insight:
In a project brief emailed to Facilities Dive, Leviton said it worked with La Guardia’s Terminal B airport officials to upgrade the terminal’s lighting and controls.
“Since the Leviton system provides central control for the lighting controls, it makes it easier for the facilities managers to control and see the current state of the lighting through the BMS interface or the Leviton graphical front end,” Paul Farris, northeast regional manager at Leviton, said in an interview.
The lighting manufacturer is installing 75 GreenMAX Relay Panels to provide flexible and easy-to-maintain lighting configurations throughout Terminal B. In the project brief, the company said each panel is equipped with a main circuit breaker and 0-10V dimming relays determined by a consulting engineer.
The terminal will have new touch screens in place. As a result, commercial tenants are expected to be able to access touch screen, scene and preset controls for dimming, scheduling, occupancy sensing, daylighting, and color tuning.
To keep lights on when needed and off when not in use, Leviton is mounting multi-technology occupancy sensors on ceilings. “The self-adjusting internal microprocessor continually analyzes, evaluates and adjusts the sensitivity and time delay,” the company said in its project brief.
Leviton is also adding daylight-harvesting and energy-saving photocells to monitor ambient light levels in the terminal, which is well lit with floor-to-ceiling windows. These photocells will automatically adjust light levels based on the amount of light coming in through these windows.
“This allows the airport to reduce the lighting output and help with overall energy usage with the natural light,” Farris told Facilities Dive.
He added that Leviton’s lighting control system automates the lighting system with adjustments that “are continually made to time schedules as well as daylighting settings so that the airport can continue cutting energy usage for the lighting.”
“For a project as substantial and state-of-the-art as LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B replacement project, the building’s lighting control system needed to be just the same. The Leviton GreenMAX control system installed has proved to be as modular and expandable as the project needed it to be without introducing complexity,” Joe Szczechowicz, senior electrical engineer at civil engineering firm WSP USA, stated in a separate project document shared with Facilities Dive.
For more than six years, New York’s LaGuardia airport has been undertaking new construction, revamping efforts and renovations at a cost of about $8 billion. Last June, the airport opened Delta’s new Terminal C to passengers, consolidating 37 gates into a spacious facility with a single arrivals and departure hall featuring floor-to-ceiling windows.
The new Delta terminal came into place just months after the installation of a solar rooftop on the western parking garage, and the introduction of new Terminal B passenger facilities, including a pedestrian skybridge. About two-thirds of the $8 billion redevelopment effort are funded through private financiers, according to A Whole New LGA.
Meanwhile, airport workers have been fighting for fair wages and safer working conditions at LaGuardia. In late June, dozens of LaGuardia airport ramp and cabin workers, represented by 32BJ SEIU, went on strike against their employer, Swissport USA, protesting against poor working conditions, interrogations and unsafe working environments, according to New York news website Documented. Swissport is an aviation services contractor that employs workers at multiple U.S. city airports, including nearly 140 at LaGuardia.
