Contractors are preparing to submit bids of 3 May for the estimated AED325m ($89m) contract to build landside support facilities at the Midfield Terminal Complex (MTC) at Abu Dhabi International airport.

Located to the east of the Midfield Terminal Building (MTB), the work involves building car parking areas, facilities for taxi and car rental companies. The total built-up area is about 190,000 square metres.

The consultant is Pascal & Watson and Buro Happold, both of the UK. The cost consultant is US-based Aecom. The client is Abu Dhabi Airports Company (Adac).

Adac has also invited firms to express interest in the soft landscaping at the MTC. The work is integrated with the primary and secondary road infrastructure and covers an area of 1.85 square kilometres.

Adac is expanding the emirate’s main passenger airport to increase its capacity from 12 million to 32 million passengers a year, as part of the government’s Plan Abu Dhabi 2030.

The MTC is one of the largest construction projects in the region. UAE-based Arabtec Construction, Turkey’s TAV Construction and Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) formally signed the main contract for the MTB, worth $2.87bn (AED 10.5bn), in June 2012.

The terminal will be across a total built-up area of 630,000 square metres and includes the building of two runways, new arrival and departure lounges, a multi-storey car park and 27,000 sq m of retail, food and beverage outlets.

It will have the world’s biggest baggage handling system, capable of handling 19,000 bags an hour, and has been designed to accommodate a light rail or metro station in the future. Once completed, the terminal will be one of the largest in the world, but Adac said it will consider a further expansion in 2020, depending on Etihad Airways maintaining its strong growth rates.

The X-shaped terminal sits between the airport’s existing runways and will reduce the distance passengers have to walk to reach their flight gate, hence its name.

In April 2013, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) won the $256m contract for airside construction at the terminal. That involves infrastructure and civil works around the midfield complex, including 300,000 sq m of pavement concrete, 600,000 sq m of flexible pavement with taxiway connections to the existing and future taxiway systems supporting the 65 contact gates and up to 19 remote stands that the proposed terminal building will have. L&T was awarded an additional contract in September 2013, for the development of the airport’s aviation fuel depot.

In November 2013, the local Habtoor Leighton Group won a $160m contract to carry out for infrastructure works at the airport, including interchange, road and bridge construction, and backbone infrastructure installation.

In December 2014 a newly renovated southern runway opened. It was completed by a consortium led by US-based Lane Mideast Contracting and including local companies Drake & Scull International and the National Contracting & Transport Company.

Adac announced that its CEO Tony Douglas has resigned in late March 2015. Douglas, who joined in March 2013, is understood to have stepped down to take on the role of CEO for Defence Equipment & Support at the UK’s Defence Ministry.