Salt Lake City International Airport’s $5.1 billion redevelopment reaches its finish line this month. The last seven gates on the east end of Concourse B open to the public Oct. 27, after a completion celebration Oct. 24, bringing The New SLC to 94 gates, four hardstands and 101 concessions. ENR detailed how the team got there on Oct. 18.
Ground broke in July 2014. The airport opened in September 2020, added east Concourse A gates in 2023, opened the Central Tunnel and Concourse B Plaza in October 2024, then brought on 10 more gates in October 2025 and four in July 2026. Executive Director Bill Wyatt has said the airport is on its “final approach.”
The New SLC airport team
HNTB is lead program consultant and civil engineer, and HOK designed the terminal. A Holder Construction and Big-D Construction joint venture built the terminal, Concourse A, parking, roads, tunnels, utilities and airfield paving. An Austin Commercial and Okland joint venture built the Concourse B facilities under a contract of roughly $545 million.
The hard part was building an airport around one that never closed. New gates went up beside active taxiways, and old gates stayed open until replacements were ready, with widebody access protected for international arrivals. Jet fuel tie-ins happened in overnight shutdowns for flushing and testing. Crews ran temporary crane roads around the concourses and checked that cranes didn’t block the control tower’s sightlines.
Holder-Big-D superintendent Brent Christiansen told ENR that “bad weather was the biggest challenge due to ILS (Instrument Landing Systems) operations and its requirements,” and that the FAA required a weekly 7460 meeting to coordinate impact areas. The final phase also extended a passenger tunnel built years earlier as a future connection, which took temporary shoring, joint design to limit differential settlement, and continuous waterproofing between old and new sections.
How the airport redevelopment cost grew
The first phase was priced near $1.8 billion at the 2014 groundbreaking. A north concourse came into scope in 2016, and the budget moved to about $3.6 billion, then nearly $4.1 billion by early 2020, then $5.1 billion. Airport officials said in 2020 that most of the growth came from added scope, much of it requested by Delta, including a bigger Sky Club, larger customs facilities and a secure international corridor, more than from market inflation.
No local tax money went in. The airport has paid with its own funds, airline and passenger fees, passenger facility charges, federal grants and revenue bonds, according to Construction Review Online, which also reported the city authorized up to $700 million more in bonds in June 2025.
Airport construction after The New SLC
Done doesn’t mean finished. The same outlet reports a main terminal renovation, first estimated at $653 million and now projected above $700 million, is expected to start in 2027. A Concourse C stays on the shelf until traffic approaches 35 million passengers a year, roughly where the airport sits now.
That’s the pattern at other hubs rebuilding in phases, from Omaha’s Eppley Airfield to San Antonio’s Terminal C. Twelve years in, Salt Lake City’s next airport contract is already on the calendar.