Spokane Airport remodeling will ease screening, add shops

Airport travel has become two experiences – passing through security (ugh) and preparing to board a plane (finally). Spokane International Airport officials have launched a $16 million remodeling project they say will simplify the first part and add more fun to the second.

When finished this fall, the project will transform the airport’s main terminal entry area. The result will be a different way to move through security screening, plus eight new stores for shopping or grabbing a bite and a beverage once inside the terminal’s circular rotunda. The rotunda itself will be closed to all but ticketed passengers.

The largest physical change is the relocation of the security checkpoint from the rotunda nearer the main entry. “This provides additional security and added capacity (for passenger growth),” said Airport Executive Director Neal Sealock.

That can happen only by demolishing the existing 18-foot-wide main terminal corridor and widening it to 66 feet.

The remodeling should not add delays for departing passengers, said Sealock.

The result will be an improved security screening system, he said, with departing travelers entering the screening area via lanes that line up left to right, instead of the current lanes that go forward and back.

Once through security, passengers will find eight retail and food concessions, including a Starbucks in the center of the rotunda. Gone is Lefty’s, the former sit-down eatery inside the rotunda. Replacing it will be Vintage Washington, serving regional wines.

Two concessionaires, HMSHost Corp. and the Paradies Shops, are paying about half the cost of the remodeling project, with the airport picking up the other half.

The screening system at the airport’s C concourse will not be changed during the remodel. That concourse, where Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air operate, will be upgraded with a new Starbucks and four other food concessions, said airport officials. New retail services also will be added in the main terminal’s entry area, for use by the general public.