Artist’s rendering of O’Hare’s big new consolidated rental car facility. (Image: Chicago Dept. of Aviation)
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other city officials gathered at O’Hare Airport last week to break ground on the facility’s biggest new construction project in years: a consolidated rental car facility.
The $782 million project includes not only the 4.5 million square foot building — on the northeast side of the airport property near the intersection of Mannheim Road and Zemke Road — but also an extension of O’Hare’s Airport Transit System to connect it to the passenger terminals.
Spacious lobby at the planned rental center. (Image: Chicago Dept. of Aviation)
The building will contain all rental company facilities, from check-in counters and back offices to parking for 4,200 rental vehicles. It will also have 2,600 public parking spaces. With no more need for shuttle vans, airport officials estimate the new rental center will eliminate 1.3 million vehicle trips per year through the terminal roadways after it is finished in 2018.
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O’Hare is a little behind the curve in this area; consolidated rental car centers have been all the rage at major U.S. airports for the past decade or so, and they continue to spread — e.g., Charlotte just opened one this spring. O’Hare smaller sister airport, Midway, has had a consolidated rental facility since 2013.
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Maybe I’m just getting in touch with my inner contrarian, but I like the consolidated car rental centers. I remember some airports 20 years ago when you had to wait for a Hertz shuttle bus or Avis shuttle bus or whatever, and they didn’t seem to come very often, which was a nuisance if you were tired from a long flight. Now you take a generic bus or a train that comes much more frequently. In Las Vegas, the buses depart continuously much of the time. However, I do agree that the extra charges they tack on as a facilities fee or transportation fee are icky.
I just hope the new facility at O’Hare will be easier to navigate to and from. I rented a car there a few years ago and the route to the highway was so labyrinthine that I’m sure I’d still be trapped there now if I didn’t have GPS navigation. It was so horrible that I gave up on O’Hare and now fly into Milwaukee if I am visiting northern Illinois.
Ohh joy, with the consolidated facilities fees.
Oh joy, just what we all want, another consolidated rental facility in which you have to drag all your luggage up to get on a train, to then get in a big facility in which you have to drag those bags around even more.
Because of the consolidated lot in San Francisco, with log train rides and long walks people are going to Oakland and San Jose. They also have one of these dreaded consolidated rental facilities in Seattle in which you have to get on a very crowded bus, it really sucks. I heard that someone going to Tacoma for the U.S. Open is flying into Portland, to avoid Seattle’s teribble consolidated rental facility.
One more thing on these facility, you will notice that it’s hundreds of dollars more to rent cars in Seattle and San Francisco, probably because of these facilities. For the U.S. Open I am renting a car at Hertz in downtown Tacoma for $290, the same car is $765 at Seattle.
So having these facilities suck, I like flying to Tampa or Orlando, were you just walk outside of baggage claim and get your car. That is what it should be like.