Salt Lake City Int’l Unveils Near-Final Phase of New Terminal

Imagine you build a series of additions onto your family home instead of buying a new one. It works well for years until the house can no longer expand to meet the needs of your growing family; the only option left is to tear down the house and rebuild a bigger version on the same lot. The catch is, you must continue living in the house until the new one is finished, vacating sections one at a time to make way for work crews. Plus, the entire family—including kids, pets and grandparents—must walk out of their way to access key areas like the kitchen and bathrooms.

Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) faced a similar scenario. After decades of incremental additions, the airport recently finished a major milestone toward replacing its aging terminal through a $5.1 billion initiative called The New SLC Redevelopment Program. Because the new airport was built adjacent to the former airport, construction had minimal impact on passengers.

In fall 2024, the Utah airport unveiled major improvements completed during the third and near-final phase: a 1,000-foot-long central tunnel, Concourse B plaza, 12 new concessions, five additional Delta Air Lines gates, and four new art installations. The River Tunnel, which connects concourses A and B, is particularly popular because it reduced the previous concourse-to-concourse transit time of at least 13 minutes to less than six.

With Phase 3 finished, SLC’s new house is ready, the lights are on, and its family of global travelers is already settled in and enjoying their more comfortable home.

Showcasing Local Beauty

Built in the early 1960s, the outgoing SLC terminal had one terminal, two concourses and 21 gates. Air service was provided by five major airlines back then—Bonanza, Frontier, United, West Coast and Western—and the airport was equipped to serve up to 12 million annual passengers. By 1996, SLC was bursting at the seams with 20 million passengers passing through per year.

That’s when the Salt Lake City Department of Airports commissioned a new master plan to adjust for the burgeoning traffic. However, it would be 18 more years before SLC broke ground on what would become its new terminal. During that period, the industry experienced a series of major upheavals, starting with 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, followed by a major U.S. financial downturn in 2008, and the global COVID-19 pandemic that intensified throughout North America in 2020.

Emerging like a phoenix amid the Wasatch Mountains, SLC’s new airport is nearly complete. Phase 3 of this massive project delivered impactful updates, and it’s clear that the airport and its designers had a unifying vision in mind. Art installations and even the new River Tunnel itself represent the state’s natural beauty.

“We were really trying to understand and represent what was special about Utah,” says Matt Needham, director of Aviation + Transportation at HOK. “We didn’t want this airport to be an anonymous hub. In some airports, you don’t even know where you are, and they can look very bland, vanilla and generic. Here in Salt Lake City, the airport team wanted passengers to understand they were definitely in Utah.”

To make that happen, a coordinated effort between teams near and far was paramount. Holder Construction Company, based in Atlanta, was chosen for its expertise and looped in firms from Salt Lake City and the surrounding area to create a Utah-centric facility. Holder Construction partnered with local management from Big-D to form a joint venture. Together, the Holder-Big-D joint venture built the South Concourse, 3,600-car parking deck, new roadways, tunnels, underground utilities and the airport’s central utility plant.

“We courted all the major players in Salt Lake and felt Big-D had the best cultural fit for us,” says Kevin Fauvell, vice president of Holder Construction Company. “We don’t presume to know the local trade markets as well as our partners do.”

Knowing the local market proved to be pivotal, as finesse was needed to procure the materials and personnel needed for Phase 3.

New Blue Connector

What used to be a half-mile trek for passengers heading to or from Concourse B is now a much shorter route thanks to six moving walkways flanked on all sides with soothing multi-sensory artwork. Gordon Huether, who created most of SLC’s other major installations, too, used specialized lighting, finish materials and custom terrazzo flooring to design the all-blue tunnel. The artist conjured up an immersive experience for passengers based on the rivers and streams that flow through Utah’s mountains and canyons. He completed the effect by curating a 100-song playlist including Salt Lake City by The Beach Boys, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Call of the Champions at Temple Square, and Marie Osmond’s In My Own Little Corner of the World.

“The Central Tunnel provides quick connections and helps the hub airport flex for future growth,” Needham says of the new infrastructure’s more practical side.

As travelers exit the tunnel, they are funneled into Concourse B, where a large glass and steel sculpture titled Northern Light, also by Huether, greets them. On the floor is a giant world map that was relocated from original Terminal 1.

It took a significant amount of materials to build SLC’s new tunnel, and the airport team translates those dry figures into more tangible, familiar references:

• 32.95 miles of steel support piles—similar to the driving distance between Salt Lake City and Park City;
• More than 3,800 tons of rebar
• 336 miles of electrical wiring in Phase 3 alone
• 48,118 cubic yards/more than 97 tons of concrete—about the same weight as 217 Boeing 747s;
• If filled with water, the tunnel could hold the equivalent of 25 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The architects and engineers who designed the Central Tunnel left space for a passenger train, which will be added after Concourse C is completed at some point in the future.

Wayfinding signage combines with architectural artwork to guide visitors through the terminal.

Ancient Dinosaur Replica, Modern Art

“Ally at the Airport”, a 30-foot-long, 15-foot-tall replica of an Allosaurus fragilis skeleton, is a striking new addition to the terminal. Apparently, the National History Museum of Utah had wanted to have a dinosaur display at SLC for decades; and now it’s a reality. Museum patrons Kirk Ririe, Bob and Cyndi Douglass, and the Lawrence T. & Janet T. Dee Foundation generously donated funds for the project, and airport visitors are awed by Ally’s presence. Utah is known for its variety of dinosaur remains, and museum staff note that more Allosaurus fossils have been found in Utah than in any other location on the planet. In fact, Ally is based on a near-complete Allosaurus fossil originally discovered in 1924 at Dinosaur National Monument near Jensen, UT.

Concourse B has a popular new resident from the National History Museum of Utah.

Not far from Ally are a dozen new food, beverage and retail concessions added during Phase 3. While a few incumbent national chains remain, most are concepts and brands local to Salt Lake City, including The Canyon, Cotopaxi and Sunday’s Best.

The idea for new landside concessions developed organically.  During early design meetings at the airport, the project team repeatedly heard cheers from families and friends welcoming home Mormon missionaries after their two-year service commitments. “We decided to celebrate that,” says Needham, noting that designers enhanced the meeter-greeter area with a cozy fireplace, artwork and large windows that overlook the tarmac. The heartfelt reunions also inspired the addition of landside food and beverage outlets so visitors can have a meal while waiting for loved ones or share their first meal together right at the airport.

Needham reports that the new food court, which is located before the TSA checkpoint, has become a bustling public place. “Airports, in many ways, are like modern cities,” he remarks. “It’s the Main Street of America.”

This Main Street is unlike most others, however, because it features an artistic representation of a Utah slot canyon. The tall tensile membrane fins are 400 feet long by 22 feet tall, comprised of aluminum tubing and composite fabric. Every piece was created and positioned just so to reflect light and create the impression of the great outdoors.

“In Utah, you have this beautiful indirect light shining down into the canyons,” Needham says. “If you look up inside the airport, you’ll see the light comes through the clear straight windows and bounces on a canted ceiling, and it shines down into the canyon.”

The new corridor with moving walkways is a multi-sensory experience.

In total, $5.5 million was spent on the art, specialty lighting and sound system. The art itself was $4.5 million, and the specialty lighting and sound system is included in the $35 million cost for the internal build-out of the Central Tunnel.

Time to Reflect

At the public debut of the Central Tunnel, Bill Wyatt, executive director with Salt Lake City Department of Airports, praised Project Manager Mike Williams of the firm Making Projects Work, Inc. for keeping a steady hand on the helm throughout the long construction process.

Wyatt says Williams acted like an owners’ representative, making sure everyone was where they needed to be, on time and on budget. “He preaches an integrated team, collaboration and communication, and he’s everything you’d want in someone leading a project like this,” explains Wyatt.

For the team as a whole, earning LEED Gold certification for sustainable design strategies and construction was a notable achievement. With Phases 1 to 3 complete, SLC now has a 909,000-square-foot central terminal building with two concourses, a 1,000-foot connecting tunnel and 45 new gates. With the majority of construction behind it, the team has a lot to celebrate.

“I’m most proud of how our team all pulled together and they didn’t wring their hands,” Fauvell reflects. “They knew how important it was to avoid delays so we didn’t burn through unrecoverable money.”

Williams is also enthusiastic about the project’s collaborative process and results. “I’m still pretty amazed every day at this program and what we have been able to accomplish,” he comments. “I walk through that facility, and I think it’s just beautiful. So many things we were trying to accomplish in the look and feel from the beginning have turned out wonderful.”

Needham considers the design experience at SLC a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Stay tuned: Additional gates will open in fall 2025, and the entire New SLC is slated to be finished in 2026 with a total of 94 gates.