The plant that heats and cools Terminal 1 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport came online with the terminal in the early 1960s, and it has never been allowed to stop. The Metropolitan Airports Commission has now picked JE Dunn Construction as construction manager at risk on a $480 million job to replace it, ENR reported Oct. 22.
The Terminal 1 Boiler and Chiller Replacement and Energy Management Center expansion is the newest piece of a $1.47 billion, multiyear modernization at MSP. The central utility plant serves the terminal and its parking structures, runs around the clock and has reached the end of its useful life, said Bill Igel, JE Dunn’s vice president and project director.
Why the MSP energy plant needs a bigger building
New boilers and chillers won’t fit in the old room. The Energy Management Center is boxed in by terminal infrastructure, Igel said, so the building has to grow. That pushes it into Concourse C.
Six active gate hold areas serving gates C6 through C11 will be demolished and rebuilt with larger footprints to make space. The plant work and the concourse work will be phased so the gates stay open, and the plant has to keep delivering heat and cooling the whole time. “Our teams will rely on incredibly precise sequencing and coordination to replace critical infrastructure while maintaining uninterrupted heating and cooling,” Igel said.
That’s the hard part. Swapping a chiller is routine work. Swapping every boiler and chiller while a terminal keeps running on them, inside a building that’s being enlarged next to live gates, isn’t.
Emissions goals behind the boiler and chiller replacement
JE Dunn says the upgrade supports the commission’s goals of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80% and water use per passenger 15% by 2030, with net zero by 2050. Neither JE Dunn nor ENR said what the new equipment will run on or how much of that target this plant covers. Newer boilers will burn less fuel than 1960s units. Whether the replacement leans on electric heat pumps or new gas boilers is what decides how far it moves the 2030 number, and nobody has said yet.
Under the CMAR contract, JE Dunn joins the commission and the design team in preconstruction for constructability reviews, estimating, scheduling, phasing, logistics, risk management and long-lead equipment procurement. Guaranteed maximum prices will be set as phases advance, so the $480 million figure isn’t locked. The designer wasn’t named. “Our priority is careful planning, transparent communication and a phased execution that ensures the airport remains fully operational throughout construction,” said Jeff Callinan, JE Dunn’s Minneapolis office leader.
MSP’s airport construction pipeline
JE Dunn knows the building. It was contractor for the Terminal 1 work in the $242 million modernization program with Delta Air Lines that finished in 2025 and renovated six concourses and about 75 gate areas. The commission put in $182.5 million and Delta $60 million. Morcon Construction Co. finished the last phase of the separate $600 million Terminal 1 operational improvements program the same year, and Sheehy Construction Co. holds the primary contract on the $305 million Concourse G expansion, due in 2028.
Airports elsewhere are deep in the same cycle, from Salt Lake City’s $5.1 billion rebuild opening its last gates this month to utility jobs like this one. At MSP the equipment will set the pace. There’s a reason long-lead boilers and chillers sit on JE Dunn’s preconstruction list.