NEW ORLEANS (AP) — When Aviation Director Kevin Dolliole looks at the mostly abandoned former south terminal at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, he sees a future thriving cargo and aircraft maintenance operation with office space and distribution facilities.
But until that transformation begins, he’s happy to see it as whatever the film and television production industry wants it to be.
As the production industry revs back up again after sitting dormant for much of the coronavirus pandemic, many have noticed New Orleans is in possession of a rare and valuable asset: a sprawling empty movie set primed to star as an airport — or anything else set designers can come up with — in any number of TV shows and movies.
In recent months, it’s been used to film airport and office scenes, a sniper attack and even a skateboard competition.
“It’s a gem that we have,” said New Orleans-based location manager Elston Howard, who has used the empty terminal for scenes in the films “Girls Trip” and “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back,” starring Tom Cruise.
Howard has worked in the local business for about 30 years and said he’s been spreading the word among his contacts in Hollywood.
“It’s like having an airport as a backlot,” he said.
In the production business, an empty facility — a hospital, school or airport — can be a godsend because it can be used without many of the restrictions and limitations imposed by its real-world use. But they’re often dirty, dilapidated or unsafe.
Not only is the former south terminal clean, lit and powered, it’s got anything a production could need to quickly stage an airport scene — ticketing booths, customs offices, baggage carousels — as well as enough room to build out any other interior location for other scenes.
Lisa Latter, a location manager, was at the south terminal on Monday shooting an exterior shot for the upcoming sixth season of the TV show, “Queen Sugar.” Filming will wrap this week, but “if we had another scene (to shoot), we definitely would have done it there,” she said. “You can do an office scene or the interior of a house. You build two walls and you’ve got a kitchen. You know, movie magic.”
“It’s very unique,” said Kate King, a location manager who has worked all seven seasons of “NCIS: New Orleans” and recently shot a scene at the airport involving a sniper in a tower for the final season of the show. “There is not a single place in the city that has as much parking, as much square footage, and the (seclusion) that you need. It really has huge potential.”
Howard, Latter and King are no strangers to staging productions in the south terminal, but they have mostly worked in the former Concourse A space, which closed down about 10 years ago. And filming took place while the rest of the terminal was operating, which presents a slew of limitations when it comes to access, security, parking availability and other hurdles in a business that already has no shortage of deadlines and narrow windows.
There is still some level of security to contend with, but it’s not as rigid as filming in an active terminal. Crew members don’t have to park far away and shots in spaces with planes and the general public aren’t restricted to odd hours of the night. Filming in an active airport, particularly now that travel is starting to pick up with the Memorial Day weekend, is rife with challenges.
“It just makes the whole process so much smoother,” Latter said of the “Queen Sugar” shoot. “We had crew parking, and we could walk right across the street.”
A few weeks ago, Red Bull used the facility for its “Terminal Takeover,” converting features like the baggage carousel, escalators and support pillars into ramps and platforms for tricks. Teams of five skaters and a camera operator came from cities across the south to film themselves performing stunts that could win them $5,000.
“Airports are always kinda that holy grail place to skate, but you’re not allowed to,” said Josh Greene, president of Throwing Star Collective, the production partner for the Red Bull Terminal Takeover. “This was our first airport build, or takeover. It just doesn’t exist in a lot of places, especially at that level.”
The airport has earned upward of $500,000 by making facilities available to film production since 2015, including installments of “Jurassic World,” “Terminator,” “NCIS” and “Treme.” The pandemic hobbled the production industry shortly after the south terminal became fully available with the move to the $1.2 billion north terminal in late 2019, but Dolliole said it has been picking up again.
“We are getting a lot more phone calls now,” he said.
Access to the full terminal won’t last forever, though. The New Orleans Aviation Board has taken the first steps toward transforming the 1.2 million-square-foot facility into its next permanent incarnation, an air cargo and aircraft maintenance hangar. The board recently selected Jacobson & Daniels from among a pool of applicants and will vote to approve the contract after Dolliole’s office is done negotiating it. The firm will spend the next 18-24 months devising a master plan for the build-out of the 200-acre property over the next two decades.
“All of that has to be mapped out, but the vast majority of our area is going to be consumed by aeronautical (uses),” Dolliole said, adding that ancillary users could be distributors and back-office space for the companies that use the property.
Dolliole said that the projected growth in air cargo fueled by Amazon, which has distribution centers in New Orleans and is building more facilities in Baton Rouge, bodes well for the south terminal, as the airport is the only one of its size for 300 miles.
“Airports around the country are seeing increased traffic in that arena, and I fully see us benefiting from that as well,” he said. “I can see an aircraft maintenance facility here for sure.”
Dolliole said the old A and B concourses are slated to be torn down, though that is still at least a year away.
Concourse D, which served Delta and is the newest of the south terminal’s facilities, will be retained and used for charter activity. The future of Concourse C is less clear, though it is currently in use as part of an emergency operations center so it’s not on the same demolition timeline as A and B, which the airport sees as the first area to be redeveloped.
Dolliole said the former long-term parking garage will continue to be the new economy lot and the old short-term garage will continue to serve as parking for employees and workers redeveloping the south side.