Public has ideas for interior design of replacement terminal at Hollywood Burbank Airport

During a fourth public workshop about a replacement 14-gate terminal at Hollywood Burbank Airport held this week, roughly 60 participants discussed what the layout of the airport should be, where amenities should be located and what the interior of the facility should look like.

The workshop, which airport officials call a charrette, was held at St. Leon Armenian Cathedral in Burbank Wednesday evening.

An earlier workshop focused on the facility’s exterior.

Facilitators with IMG Inc., the firm hired by the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority to organize the workshops, helped participants talk about the types of materials and colors that would be used inside the new terminal, whether there should be amenities before the TSA screening area and if there should be live performances at the airport.

Bill Hart, a retired Lockheed employee from Burbank who now lives in Marietta, Ga., said it is important for airport officials to maintain the history of the airfield in some way.

“A lot of history was made here,” Hart said. “It’s important to not see it erased and forgotten.”

Understanding that the terminal is planned to be 355,000 square feet, which is smaller than the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport he often uses, Hart said having shops and restaurants centrally located within the terminal would not create logistical issues.

“Having a more central area is also easier to create a theme within the terminal,” he said.

Next to Hart was Kareem El-Sisi, an economics and urban planning student from USC, who suggested that the airport should consider having a hybrid between centralized amenities in a common area and other shops and restaurants spread out toward the gates in the terminal.

“It’s always great to tailor something for this airport specifically,” El-Sisi said. “If it’s an airport where people are rushing from one place to another, it wouldn’t be good to have a centralized common area.”

El-Sisi added he thinks the gates should be stress-free environments for waiting travelers, and having busier stores and restaurants in a centralized area away from most of the gates could achieve that.

Hart and El-Sisi also mentioned that live performances, especially over-the-top acts found in Las Vegas, would be too much for the Burbank airport.

“I don’t think this is going to be an airport in Dubai, where there’s extraordinary and extravagant exhibits and performances,” El-Sisi said. “I think this airport is one that’s more humble and serves a purpose.”

The next charrette is scheduled for Sept. 4 at the Castaway restaurant, 1250 Harvard Road, Burbank.