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Denver International Airport (DEN) has selected a consortium led by Ferrovial Airports as the preferred bidder to carry out the Denver International Airport redevelopment public private partnership (PPP) project.

The team beat out competition from two other bidders: Den Transformation Team DT2 (Manchester Airport Group) and Westfield LLC.

The wining team is composed of the following local, national and international companies:

• Equity Partners:  Ferrovial Airports International Ltd., JLC Loop Capital, Saunders Construction and Magic Johnson Enterprises
• Design & Build partners: Ferrovial Agroman and Saunders Construction, Inc.
• Architects: Luis Vidal + Architects, Harrison Kornberg Architects and Anderson Mason Dale
• Local Engineers/Contractors: Intermountain Electric, Civil Technology, Gilmore Construction, Sky Blue Builders and Burgess Services
• Equity Partners Legal Advisors: Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
• Financial Advisor: Citibank

According to sources, the winning consortium will have capital from JLC Loop Capital Partners, which is the infrastructure investment firm set up by the former Los Angeles Laker, Magic Johnson. He recently founded the company to take advantage of new federal government infrastructure spending promised by President Barack Obama. The firm raised over $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2016, including $1 billion from a sole investor. 

The airport project involves improvements on the airport’s Jeppesen Terminal, which features 1.5 million square feet of space, and includes passenger ticketing, baggage claim, ground transportation, international arrivals, shops and restaurants, office areas and the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) security checkpoints.

The preferred bidder, which has entered into exclusive negotiations for the PPP contract, will be responsible for accomplishing the three main project's objectives:

• Reclaim all or a portion of the space on Level 5 of the Great Hall that is currently being used for security screening by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), by relocating the TSA screening areas to level 6, with the goals of improving passenger flow and increasing non-airline revenue opportunities in the Great Hall;
• Improve passenger processing (ticketing, baggage and security) to optimize the capacity, efficiency, flexibility and useful life of the terminal; and
• Create a workable financial plan and structure for the redevelopment of the Great Hall that incorporates an efficient use of private sector capital and risk transfer to generate value to the City, in exchange for a scope of to-be-determined rights or other benefits to be granted to the selected proposing team.

The total project investment is planned to be repaid through the concession's revenue, a portion of which DIA could claim. In 2014 approximately 46 % of the airport’s US$700 million in operating revenue came from non-airline operations.

Denver International Airport (DIA) is the largest airport in the United States by total area. As of 2015, DIA was the 18th-busiest airport in the world and the 6th busiest in the United States by passenger traffic with over 54 million passengers. It also has the third largest domestic connection network in the country.