Project Facts

  • Project: Concourse T Midpoint Vertical Expansion (Socium project 211343)
  • Owner: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport -City of Atlanta, Department of Aviation
  • General Contractor: Turner Construction and UJAMAA Construction (joint venture)
  • Architect / Designer: GVSA in joint venture with Corgan
  • Program: Part of ATLNext, the airport’s 20-year capital improvement plan
  • Recognition: ENR Excellence in Construction Award (2024)
  • Project type: New construction
  • Socium scope: Interior and exterior commercial coatings on walls, ceilings, doors and frames, stair metals, floors, and exposed steel -including intumescent fireproofing and high-performance coating systems
  • Socium certifications applied: Native American Business Entity (NABE), City of Atlanta EBO/SBE
  • Significance: Socium’s first significant airport project

The Project

The Concourse T Midpoint Vertical Expansion is the new vertical-circulation hub serving the central span of Concourse T at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport – the busiest passenger airport in the world. The scope adds an escalator pair, two passenger elevators, an existing-escalator modernization, and a relocated egress stair, alongside enhanced seating, wayfinding, flight information displays, and apron-view glazing. The construction team installed an 85-foot escalator in a single coordinated overnight lift, and approximately 200 million passengers passed safely through the surrounding concourse during construction.

For the coatings line item, the Midpoint T expansion was a new-construction scope inside one of the most operationally demanding aviation environments in the country. Every surface – from structural steel that needed intumescent fireproofing to public-facing walls and ceilings finished for daily passenger use – had to land on aviation-grade durability, fire-rating, sustainability, and aesthetic standards. Socium delivered that scope as part of Socium’s aviation coatings work and entered the airport sector at scale.

The Scope Socium Delivered

Surfaces and substrates

 

Socium covered the full coatings envelope on the new Midpoint T volume. Interior and exterior commercial coatings were applied across walls, ceilings, doors and frames, stair metals, floors, and exposed steel. The scope spanned both back-of-house and public-facing surfaces, with the spec writing reflecting how each surface would be used after handover – public-traffic finish standards on concourse-side walls and ceilings, harder-wearing systems on stair metals and floors, and protective coatings on exposed structural and architectural steel.

Intumescent fireproofing on structural steel

The technical centerpiece of the scope was intumescent coatings on structural steel. Intumescent systems are not aesthetic finishes, they are passive fire protection. Under heat, the coating expands and chars, insulating the steel beneath and protecting structural integrity for the rated time period during a fire event. On a vertical-circulation hub used to evacuate a passenger concourse, that rating is part of life-safety performance, not a finish choice. Specifying, applying, and documenting intumescent systems to the rated dry-film thickness is exacting work -the kind that lives or dies on surface preparation, environmental controls during application, and submittal-package discipline. Socium handled that scope to the standard required for an FAA-touched, federally-funded airport project.

High-performance coating systems for aesthetics, durability, and sustainability

The remaining coatings scope used high-performance systems chosen against four client priorities – sustainability, safety, longevity, and aesthetics -defined by HJAIA and the design team. Sustainability shaped product selection (low-VOC, sector-appropriate environmental compliance). Safety was carried by the intumescent scope on steel. Longevity drove the choice of harder-wearing chemistry on stair metals, floors, and high-traffic walls. Aesthetics governed sheen, color, and finish on the public-facing surfaces that passengers actually see. Each surface in the package was specified to the system that did its job, the same primer-led, sector-matched approach Socium uses across aviation hangar coatings and federal scopes.

Operating Inside an Active Aviation Construction Environment

A new-construction scope inside an operating airport is not a normal commercial sequence. Three operating realities shaped how Socium ran the work.

Multi-trade coordination

The Midpoint T expansion ran with the trade density of any major airport build-out -structural, mechanical, electrical, escalator and elevator installers, glazing, and finishes all sequenced through the same vertical footprint on the same schedule. Coatings sit late enough in that sequence that any compression upstream lands directly on the painter’s window. Socium ran weekly meetings with trade partners, the Turner/UJAMAA joint-venture team, and the design team to keep that window protected and to flag conflicts before they became schedule risk.

Schedule discipline through pre-planning

The team relied on detailed pre-planning rather than reactive scheduling. The crew sized, the substrate prep cadence, the cure windows, and the surface sequencing were all built into the plan up front and then maintained through weekly coordination. That discipline is what kept the coatings scope aligned with the project’s overall completion targets despite the typical compression points of any new aviation build.

Working adjacent to active airport operations

Hartsfield-Jackson did not pause for the Midpoint T build. Even on a new-construction footprint, an airport-side scope means SIDA-controlled access, FOD-aware staging, secure tool and material handling, and a crew comfortable with the tempo and protocols of an airfield. Socium ran the project to those standards as a baseline.

Compliance, Documentation, and Diversity-Supplier Credit

Aviation construction at an FAA-touched, federally-funded facility carries compliance demands well beyond a typical commercial scope.

Federal-grade documentation discipline

Socium ran the Concourse T scope under the documentation cadence used on federal projects: daily reports, environmental-condition logs (dewpoint, humidity, surface temperature), substrate prep records, batch numbers, and submittal-package compliance. Intumescent systems in particular live or die on documentation -verified dry-film thickness, environmental conditions during application, and product batch tracking are part of the deliverable. The records arrive as part of the work product, not as a post-project cleanup.

NABE federal-eligible diverse-supplier credit

Socium’s Native American Business Entity certification makes the company federal-eligible across DoD, GSA, and federally-funded scopes. On a project tied to an airport-wide capital program with federal funding components, NABE-eligible spend is a tracked deliverable. Socium contributed directly to that line.

City of Atlanta EBO/SBE participation

The Department of Aviation requires that City of Atlanta projects close meaningful diverse-supplier participation goals. Socium’s standing as a registered EBO/SBE supplier counted directly toward those goals on the painting line item, freeing other trades on the Turner/UJAMAA joint venture to be selected on capability rather than certification status.

Results

The Midpoint T Vertical Expansion delivered a visually appealing new vertical-circulation hub for Concourse T, finished against the spec on time and aligned with HJAIA’s long-term operational and maintenance expectations.

  • The completed coatings package supported the appearance, durability, and long-term performance objectives the design team set for the space
  • The intumescent scope on structural steel was specified, applied, and documented to the rating required for the public concourse environment
  • The work was held aligned with project schedule and specifications through pre-planning and weekly trade-partner coordination, despite the typical compression points of an aviation new-construction sequence
  • The project went on to receive the ENR Excellence in Construction Award (2024) -region-wide recognition that the Midpoint T expansion was executed at a standard worth highlighting
  • For Socium, the Midpoint T scope was the company’s first significant airport project -a reference point for the capability set the firm now applies across aviation, federal, and airport-side commercial scopes

What This Project Means for Future Aviation Scopes

Concourse T Midpoint demonstrated three capabilities at the same time: aviation-grade coating discipline (including the intumescent-systems work that distinguishes airport-grade from commercial-grade scopes), multi-trade coordination on an active airport build, and federal-grade compliance documentation – each at the operating standard a Turner/UJAMAA joint venture and the City of Atlanta Department of Aviation expect from a coatings subcontractor of record. For airport authorities, GCs running airport-side scopes, and aviation MROs and FBOs evaluating coatings partners across the Southeast, this project is the reference Socium offers when the cost of a coating failure is higher than the cost of choosing the right contractor the first time.

If your next aviation or airport-side scope needs a coatings partner who can hold the spec, hold the schedule, and hold the documentation, request a quote for your aviation scope and Socium will walk the project with you before the spec is locked in.