Construction budget on SLC Airport doubles since groundbreaking
Mar 6, 2018, 1:25 PM | Updated: 9:12 pm
SALT LAKE CITY — The budget for construction of the new Salt Lake City International Airport has essentially doubled since its initial ground breaking in 2014, but airport officials want to remind us the scope of the project has changed dramatically since then.
Spokesperson Nancy Volmer said an addition was announced in 2016, after airlines asked for an additional concourse to be built. The project is now approaching $3.6 billion. 
A sigh of relief for Uthans, “There’s no local taxpayer dollars that are being spent on this project. It’s being paid for by the airlines and by the users of the airport,” said Volmer.
She said the “users” are a mix of funds from airport savings, passenger and car rental facility charges, federal grants and airport revenue bonds.
Volmer said airport officials want to continue to make sure that the passenger facility charges stay low. We can expect the airport price tag to continue to be fluid, she said, as construction material prices change and contracts get hammered out, for example.
The Salt Lake City International Airport used today was built in the early 1960s for 10 million passengers. Volmer said they are currently seeing 24 million passengers a year. She said on some days there are 30,000 passengers walking through TSA security check points.
Not only is the airport really under capacity, but she said they don’t have the restaurants, shops, parking, and restrooms they need. Luckily, Salt Lake City has the space to build, unlike so many other cities in the country.
The entirely new facility will be completed in two phases. Phase one is expected to be completed by 2020.
Volmer said there will be a new parking garage with twice as many spaces, one central terminal instead of two, and the finished construction of the west ends of the south and north concourses. Once it opens, Volmer says the airport will continue to use concourse B, C and D while they start tearing down the current facilities, so they can build out the concourses to the east.
“It’s really going to be this incredible facility, totally new airport that opens up in 2024-25, and it’s going to be something I think that all the local residents are going to be proud of,” said Volmer.
Volmer said after speaking with locals Uthans, they want to see the beauty of Utah shared throughout the new facility.
“It’s going to be something that people will remember this airport by whether it’s their destination or they’re just passing through and making a connecting flight,” she said.
