KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For years, we've heard how bad of shape the airport is in.
KCI officials took 41 Action News underground to show us a specific example, and above ground to show recent projects.
Deputy Director of Aviation Justin Meyer showed us a makeshift canal in the basement of Terminal A, running along the wall and down to the floor.
"This is an interior gutter used to keep water that's coming in through the wall away from electrical equipment," Meyer said.
On the other side of the wall is dirt, and above that, the sidewalk and roadway of Terminal A.
"Like a lot of 50-year-old basements in Kansas City, this one has a little bit of a water leak," Meyer said.
The gutter is the quick fix they're using.
"The bigger solution would actually involve removing the entire roadway in front of Terminal A and coring down about 20 feet to be able to apply a water barrier on the outside of the wall and that's a really comprehensive solution," Meyer explained.
Terminal A is not in use, but the problems in one terminal are typical of the problems in the others. Meyer said the gutter is an "indicator of future problems that we will need to address as we go forward."
"This is what 45-year-old concrete looks like," Meyer said, pointing to a wall at Terminal A, which cracked and gave way to the rusted rebars inside.
Terminals B and C don't look like that, but Terminal A shows KCI's age.
For years, officials say they've put just enough cosmetic patches on issues inside Terminal B and C to get by.
"We start to run out of space, and I think it's not feasible in the long-term to think that we can just keep doing these $10 million projects here, $10 million projects there and significantly improve the guest experience," Meyer said.
KCI is currently spending more than $10 million on a project at Gate 90, so that international planes can land and depart in the same area, instead of bussing around to another gate.
They caught up on federally-required breast-feeding and service dog areas, but those amenities are only available for four airlines.
The lack of seating stares officials in the face while trying to make the most out of small gate space, Meyer said.
Each year the airport spends around 65 million on maintenance, including runways and taxiways, but the aviation department has enough money to do that.
"If we're talking about a major renovation, we'll need to go back to the same bond markets and capital sources that we will need to if we do a new terminal, so it's not like not doing the new terminal means we don't spend any money, it means we'll have to spend more, quite honestly," Meyer said.
KCI officials said no matter what happens with the election November 7 on whether to build a brand-new single-terminal airport, they'll still have to create a working environment for the airlines.
"We're going to have to figure a lot of things out. We're going to have to spend a lot of money trying to set [old infrastructure] up to be successful for many years in the future," Meyer said. "And that's really expensive."
Estimates show building new would cost around $1 billion, while completely renovating while still keeping the airport in use would cost around $1.5 billion.
The election is November 7.
