More delays for Hartsfield-Jackson restaurant contracts

The empty centerpoint of Hartsfield-Jackson’s Concourse C, where a food court was supposed to be built.

The empty centerpoint of Hartsfield-Jackson’s Concourse C, where a food court was supposed to be built.

A long-delayed plan for a new food court at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is being further bogged down by contracting issues.

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport started the contracting process for a collection of new restaurants at the center of Concourse C in January 2015.

But today, nearly three years later, there is no food court there. Where those restaurants should be is instead a decorative wall, leaving fewer options for passengers at the world’s busiest airport.

After companies submitted proposals for the restaurants in 2015, the city said that August that it decided to throw out the proposals and start the process over again. A new process started in October 2015, and the city collected new proposals in January 2016, with plans to open the new restaurants in mid-2016.

Instead, it took until November 2016 for the city to announce it had selected Global Concessions as the winning firm to operate the Concourse C food court with a Krispy Kreme, Bantam + Biddy, Saladworks, Great Wraps and Leeann Chin.

But that new food court never opened.

Now, Hartsfield-Jackson general manager Roosevelt Council said the contracting process has again been canceled and a new request for proposals (RFP) will be issued soon.

“It was in the best interests of the city,” Council said. “Because we wanted to make a few more changes to it, structurally, for the RFP itself.”

“We’re just working on just what those revisions need to be,” Council said.

The delay comes amid other airport contracting delays for new restaurants on Concourse E and on Concourses A and B, and controversy over a massive contracting process for new shops throughout most of the concourses at Hartsfield-Jackson.