Passenger Terminal Roof Replacement at Buffalo Niagara International Airport

Passero Associates performed architectural and engineering design services and full-time resident engineering inspection during construction. The existing roof of over 260,000 SF is a white PVC single ply roof over many levels and slopes. The intent of the project was to remove the existing roof and replace with a new single ply roofing system.

After thermal scanning of the existing roof, it was determined that the roof had been well maintained and that there was minimal water infiltration or insulation degradation. Also, the PVC membrane was tested and determined that it had not yet reached the point of failure from leached plasticizers. Therefore, it was determined that this was an ideal candidate for a roof coating system that could achieve a new 30-year warranty.

One of the major components of this construction was the ability to perform all this roof restoration with minimal disruption of the existing roof mounted air handling system. We studied the existing roof mounted equipment and within penthouse spaces which provides all the HVAC for the terminal. Conventional roof replacement would have required removing all the HVAC units, installing new curbs, and resetting them with cranes working around controlled air space. This work was too costly and deemed outside the scope of the project.

A requirement of the project was to keep the terminal 100% operational while performing this work. The restoration approach was able to accomplish this requirement and kept the Terminal functioning throughout the entire duration with no interruption.

This approach brought the project in at $5.7M, which was well under the projected $9.0M budget, saving $3.3M and allowing the Airport to fund other critical maintenance items.