BANGOR, Maine — The most dramatic phase of Bangor International Airport’s $8 million terminal modernization project is poised to start soon after the holiday season wraps up, according to airport officials.
The airport’s domestic terminal hasn’t seen a major update since the 1970s.
“The terminal we have now, it’s functional, but it’s old, it’s tired, it’s beyond its useful life,” Airport Director Tony Caruso told the city’s Airport Committee during a meeting earlier this week.
The changes include rearranging the airline ticket counters, bringing them all to the north side of the building near the current main entrance, pushing back the counters and the front wall to open more space for queuing passengers, installing windows along the front of the terminal to let in more natural light, replacing flooring and light fixtures, adding wood finish to give the airport a “Maine feel,” and more.
The TSA will move its baggage screening behind the wall, Caruso said. A conveyor belt will take the bags from the ticket counters to the room on the other side for the in-line baggage screening process.
Caruso said that will speed up check-in times, get passengers out of line and to their gates on the second floor faster.
“All of this will increase our efficiency and improve passenger flow,” Caruso told the committee.
The terminal portion of the project is expected to cost about $8 million, funded through a series of federal and state grants, passenger facility charges (a $4.50 charge added to the ticket of every boarded passenger that airports can use to enhance safety, security or capacity), Airport Improvement Program funds, the TSA and “minimal out-of-pocket costs” from the airport, Caruso said. Construction will last about 18 months, but the terminal will remain open.
Construction crews already have started work on the temporary airline check-in counters on the south side of the building, which airlines near the main entrance will move to in mid- to late January.
Portland-based Sheridan Corp., the same company that built the new University Credit Union headquarters in Orono, will be the lead builder on the terminal project, Caruso said.
Planning for the modernization effort started more than two years ago, with construction work starting in 2013.
An official “kickoff” event is in the planning stages for sometime after the New Year, according to Caruso.
The first phase of the project, which included renovations to the airport’s escalators and the $771,000 reconstruction of Godfrey Boulevard in the area around the airport entrance, wrapped up in the fall.
The airport has plans for other construction projects through 2020 — the Federal Aviation Administration requires commercial airports to have a five-year Capital Improvement Plan in order to be eligible for funding toward upgrades in security, safety and efficiency.
In 2016, airport officials hope to design and build a walkway connecting the international and domestic terminals post-security, which would allow the airport to use international gates for domestic traffic, Caruso said.
Another multi-year project set to start in 2017 will rehab Taxiway A, which runs parallel to the airport’s 11,500-foot runway.
The airport served 487,775 passengers in 2013, the most since 2005.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter @nnmccrea213.