San Antonio International Airport Terminal C

San Antonio International Airport’s Terminal C reached its halfway point this month. A signed steel beam was trucked downtown on Oct. 8 ahead of a topping-off ceremony planned for the following week, and the city says the $1.7 billion terminal is on track to open in 2028.

Hensel Phelps is building it under a construction-manager-at-risk contract, with Corgan as master architect and San Antonio’s Lake Flato as design collaborator. At about 850,000 square feet, the terminal is bigger than SAT’s two existing terminals combined.

Project Scope

The 18-gate terminal sits on the site of the airport’s original World War II-era terminal and will connect to Terminal B on its east side. The program includes a federal inspection station for international arrivals, two 10,000-square-foot airline lounges for Delta and American, a 44,000-square-foot food court and concourse ceilings that reach 30 feet. A separate $132 million garage with 10,000 spaces is due in late 2027, and MarmonMok designed the new ground transportation center.

Lake Flato lists mass timber among the design moves, and the structure shows it. In July, STV’s program and construction management team supported the lift of a 90-foot, 12,000-pound fishbelly glulam beam. STV works inside an integrated program management office led by Freese and Nichols, and Accenture’s David Brandenburg is the executive program manager.

Roughly 40 contractors and about 700 workers are on site six days a week under four tower cranes, according to the San Antonio Report, and the job spends about $2 million a day. The building is expected to be enclosed with utilities on by December, when interior work ramps up.

Why It Matters

Watch the number. KSAT reported a $1.2 billion terminal at the Dec. 10, 2024, groundbreaking. The city has used $1.4 billion, STV cites $1.6 billion and October coverage says $1.7 billion. Some of that is how scope gets bundled and some is escalation, which the city budgeted for: its 2023 plan carried 30% for cost escalation and 10% for contingency.

The financing has held up. In July the airport priced $866.44 million in revenue and refunding bonds against $3.9 billion in orders from 78 institutional investors. Traffic is softer. Passenger counts dipped this year and Spirit Airlines left SAT.

Aviation director Jesus Saenz insists the airlines still want the gates. If he’s right, San Antonio gets an airport built ahead of demand for once, not one that’s always catching up.

Project Team & Details