The opening of the new terminal will be a landmark moment in the history of the Des Moines International Airport, an event that the airport’s CEO said may have seemed unlikely more than a decade ago.

“I think if we go back to 2013, I probably wasn’t at that time sure we’d ever get to this point because it was such a huge lift to get here,” said CEO Brian Mulcahy, who was finance director at the time before being elevated to assistant executive director in 2022 and later to CEO in 2025.

Mulcahy recently announced that the new terminal will open to travelers in January 2027.

The new terminal will help relieve overcrowding during peak travel times and support the continued growth and demand for air travel in Central Iowa, Mulcahy said.

The $557 million project is the culmination of more than a decade of work that began with what Mulcahy described as enabling projects — projects that helped prepare the airport for the day when a new terminal would be built. Those included moving an air cargo building on the south side of the airfield, moving Signature Aviation’s operation to the south end of the airport, moving a couple of hangars and the demolition of several buildings.

“I’m not sure we’d be here but knowing back in 2013 and 2014, if we didn’t start doing the enabling projects we would never have been in the position to build a new terminal,” Mulcahy said.

The new, 1,100-stall parking garage expansion was completed last summer.

The airport contracted with the Weitz Co., which partnered with Turner Construction, on the project.

The terminal is completely enclosed, and while the inside is still very much under construction, it’s beginning to take shape, allowing one to envision where the security check lines and baggage claim will be and where gates will be constructed. You can also see a meet-and-greet area, where people can say goodbye and greet family and friends who travel from the airport. A coffee shop is among the amenities that are planned for that area.

A restaurant is planned along the concourse where passengers will wait for the flights. Nearby will be a grab-and-go food service area. 

Elevators are operating and escalators are in place, though not fully installed.

Mulcahy said finishing work is being done and the terminal should be turned over to the Airport Authority in August or September.

“Then we’ll start doing what we call operational readiness and transition,” he said.

That includes everything from making sure all door alarms and video surveillance are working and making sure all checkpoint lanes are working.

“There’s a significant amount of work beyond construction,” Mulcahy said. “Once the construction is done, then that’s when the work really starts for a lot of airport authorities to make sure we’re ready to operate.”

All but $5 million of the funding that was needed is in place, coming from a variety of federal, state and local funds, including the $350 million bond issue approved by voters in 2023. That $5 million could come from additional federal dollars the airport has recently applied for, but nonetheless, Mulcahy described it as incidental to the overall project.

Mulcahy said the new terminal will open with six new gates in addition to the 13 that are in operation today.

A seventh gate will open later in 2027, with two more in 2028, and the final two gates opening in 2030.

That will allow airlines to park more planes overnight, with the opportunity to potentially increase destinations flown out of Des Moines, Mulcahy said.

Des Moines International Airport saw a 2.4% increase in passengers in 2025 with more than 3.25 million travelers, a new record for the facility. 

The new terminal has a wide open design with high ceilings and lots of glass. The design will reduce what Mulcahy said were “pinch points” in the current terminal that create congestion during peak travel times and seasons.

The seating area, or holding rooms, where passengers wait to board a flight, currently seat around 70 people. Most aircraft seat well over 100, Mulcahy said.

In the new terminal, those areas will seat around 140 people, he said.

“So, we expect the overcrowding to be a lot less in the new terminal,” Mulcahy said.

He said the project is critical to the continued economic growth of the metro and Central Iowa.

“If a business needs someone to travel, they have to be someplace that they can travel, so if this airport wasn’t here and providing good connectivity around the country, then these businesses would be somewhere else where they could do that,” Mulcahy said. “It’s important for the airport to be strong and growing for all those businesses to attract and retain employees. It’s both from a business and a personal travel standpoint. I think the majority of people want to live somewhere within a reasonable distance of an airport and be able to get where they want to go. It’s a quality of life issue for people on the personal side, and a matter of necessity on the business side.”

A report from the Iowa Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Aviation showed that the Des Moines airport generates about $752 million a year in economic activity for the state.

When the terminal is complete, the airport will transfer operations overnight, closing the current terminal after the last flight of the night and reopening in the new terminal before the first flight of the morning.

Once that transfer has happened, demolition of the current terminal will begin as soon as possible. Only the terminal will be razed. The current concourses will remain and be connected to the new terminal by a skybridge so that those gates can continue to beused until all the new gates are built, Mulcahy said.

After demolition of the existing terminal is complete, a road to the new terminal will take its place, he said.

Mike Tousley, general manager of the Weitz Co., said the terminal is one of the first Iowa public projects to be built using the construction manager-at-risk model, approved by the Iowa Legislature in 2022. The model allows public projects to hire a construction manager to help oversee the design and construction phases of a project.

Having that coordination has helped keep the project moving forward and ahead of schedule, Tousley said.

“That new delivery method allows us to get engaged in this project very, very early,” he said. “We started with the designer and airport team on day one, and I’m convinced that [without the] collaboration between all of us and the relationships that were built over the past three years, we would not be standing here today.”

He said there were design elements identified early in the process that contractors and airport staff wanted to be completed by certain dates, which gave the project a boost.

“I would venture to guess we have saved at least six months on when this project is actually going to open versus when it could have opened under the old delivery model, so a significant advantage,” Tousley said.

Mulcahy said from a professional standpoint, watching the new terminal go up has been especially meaningful for him and airport leadership.

“Seeing that team come together and just get it done, it’s people who have taken this on over and above their day job to make sure we’re ready,” he said. “To think about the fact we’re going to operate [in the current terminal] one night until the last flight comes in and then we’re going open there at 4 a.m. the next morning. It’s a pretty significant deal to do that and be ready for that.”

But airport staff knows the new terminal and what it will offer is really about passengers and the opportunity to increase traffic at the airport, Mulcahy said.

“I’m really hoping that they enjoy the atmosphere of the new building, the look and feel of it. It’s such a difference from our current building,” he said. Having high ceilings and lots of glass, I just think it’s going to give everybody a sense of pride in Des Moines. I think the new terminal will really set the stage for people coming to town and give them a great impression of the city.”

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To take a 3D tour of what the new terminal will look like, scan the QR codes