34
TERMINALS  
September 2026      AirportImprovement.com
SEA
It’s not unusual to see passengers 
looking up at airports. After all, 
going up is the whole point of 
being there. But when the first travelers 
walked into the newly expanded C 
Concourse space at Seattle-Tacoma 
International Airport (SEA) in June, they 
were looking up for a whole different 
reason. The four-story, $399 million 
expansion is a sight to behold.
“It was 6 a.m., and 
there were literally 
people who stopped 
and dropped their 
bags,” recalls SEA 
Managing Director 
Wendy Reiter. “They 
were like, ‘Oh my 
God, this is just 
amazing.’”
For Reiter, those spontaneous reactions 
confirmed that years of planning had 
achieved exactly what the Port of Seattle 
wanted. “I really feel like this project is 
exactly what we were looking for,” she 
says. “It’s home, it’s Seattle, it’s comfort. It’s 
where we’re headed, and I’m really excited.” 
Officially opened on June 11, the C 
Concourse Expansion was the final major 
project completed under the Upgrade 
SEA program before Seattle hosted six 
matches for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. 
The project significantly increased the size 
of the concourse from 81,000 square feet 
to 229,500, with more than a dozen new 
dining and retail options. Other features 
include an outdoor observation deck, 
public art, a tiered amphitheater with live 
music performances, passenger wellness 
spaces and gathering areas designed to 
make one of the country’s busiest airports 
feel remarkably more relaxed.
Its greatest accomplishment, however, 
may be solving a problem that has 
challenged SEA for years. And that was 
also accomplished by looking up.
Unlike many other major U.S. airports, 
SEA has almost no room to expand. 
Serving roughly 53 million annual 
passengers on just 2,500 acres, SEA has 
one of the smallest footprints among the 
nation’s busiest airports. As a point of 
comparison: Hector International Airport 
(FAR) in Fargo, ND, (not a major) serves 
1.1 million passengers using the same 
amount of space; and 50 million travelers 
pass through San Francisco International 
Airport (SFO), which sits on 5,200 acres. 
That overriding constraint ultimately drove 
the unique design for SEA’s C Concourse 
WENDY REITER
Seattle-Tacoma Int’l Builds Up, Not Out When 
Expanding and Remaking C Concourse  
BY JENNIFER DAACK WOOLSON

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