New, State-of-the-Art Central Deicing Facility at O’Hare

Today, the Chicago Department of Aviation unveiled a new, state-of-the-art Central Deicing Facility at O’Hare International Airport. The airport’s first dedicated deicing facility will support airlines in efficiently deicing aircraft away from the gate during snow events, which will improve access to gates for aircraft operations during winter weather operations. The CDF will enhance safety and efficiency for more than 50 air carriers serving O’Hare by allowing planes to be deiced as close as possible to departure from the runway.

The facility, used by American Airlines and United Airlines, is the largest deicing facility of its kind in the U.S. and second largest in the world! The 835,000-square-foot Centralized Deicing area, the size of approximately 17 football fields, consists of two major elements: a deicing pad that can accommodate up to 20 narrow body airplanes or 5 wide body airplanes at a time and a four-story ramp tower that allows airlines the ideal vantage point from which to control their individual deicing operations. The facility is also equipped with a state-of-the-art lighting configuration that allows it to be used 24-hours a day, enhancing visibility during snow events.

The CDA and its airline partners first conceptualized the CDF in 2013. From start to finish, the $168 million project took 20 months to construct, and was completed on December 27, 2018. With roughly 3.5 million square feet of concrete laid, the CDF and the new taxiway system were built using approximately twice the amount of concrete used to construct O’Hare’s runways.

Milhouse played a key role in the project, including:

• Project Management
• MEP/FP Engineering Design
• Structural Engineering Design
• Construction-Phase Services

As part of the Kimley-Horn team, Milhouse was responsible for planning and designing the facility’s storm drainage and ensuring it meshes with the reconfigured airport’s storm water system, with storm sewers ranging in size from 8” to 72”, designed using XP-SWMM.

Earlier this month, O’Hare was named busiest airport in the nation for flight operations in 2018, surpassing Atlanta. In 2018, O’Hare operated more than 903,000 flight operations, and served more than 83 million passengers.