A city that has long been out of the picture has now made the comeback of the century. Sunset Springs became a city in January 2015 and after a decade of growth and a drought, our city is proud to say that we now have an International Airport! Read about the entire journey of our biggest construction project to date below!
How it started
In late June, there was a plan to demolish multiple unpleasant and eyesore structures right outside of Riverside District, which was located directly North of North Sunset Springs District. These structures had been standing for around 8-9 years and removing them was a battle due to active owners. Finally on July 9, these towers were demolished. There was currently no plan to put an airport in the spot that the towers stood. That wasn’t until a week later when the city government decided to clear the land and put another expansion. This then lead to the idea of a long overdue project of constructing an international airport. Below is the project location while land clearing was still in progress before any construction began.
Preliminary Design and Planning
The plan originally was to keep Riverside District and build a bridge over the river and to the airport terminal, but that plan was tossed and eventually it was decided to completely remove Riverside District (and the abandoned and unoccupied structures within it) and make that part of the airport grounds. Below is a hand drawn rough draft of the airport. Realism was the first consideration to make of this airport. Each side of the runway was numbered based on the magnetic heading of the runway which is what real world airports do when constructing runways as well. We wanted a spaced out taxiway and a long runway which was far from the terminal building and an aircraft hangar.
Construction
Once, the plan was confirmed, the land was regioned for the airport. The land value was approximately F70,000 which equates to 14,000 blocks of land. Riverside District was roughly F12,000 in land value equating to 2400 blocks of land. This puts the total airport land value around F82,000 and 16400 blocks of land. This is roughly 40% of the size of Sunset Springs as a whole. Horizontal construction of the runway, taxiway began as shown below.
Once horizontal construction was completed. Planning for the vertical construction of the airport terminal building began. Many airport across the HelloMiners influenced the design of this terminal building including Ashford, Sudbury, Oyster Cove and Bayview. After multiple trials, the frame was finally complete.
Then, the glass was installed and roof was constructed.
Afterward, the hangar and the control tower were constructed over the next week. The terminal building and the control tower were furnished and a private jet was built inside the aircraft hangar. A lot of thought and creativity went into the inside of theterminal building. 1900s airplanes were hung from the roof of the building on the inside to give it a cool airport vibe as well as four security checkpoints, two check in areas and two baggage claim areas. After F75,000 of material was purchased for construction, the airport was 100% completed on August 23rd. This project took one month and three weeks from the point of removing the old towers behind the old Riverside District to placing the last block of this airport.
Final product!
Below is our finished product and we are proud of the project and the hard work that was put into this design. Let us know what you think!
