The new Des Moines International Airport terminal is expected to open to travelers in January 2027, the airport’s CEO said during a media tour of the new terminal on Wednesday.

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

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

On Wednesday, Mulcahy led a media tour of the new terminal along with other airport staff and members of the project’s contractor, the Weitz Co,, which partnered with Turner Construction on the terminal 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.

During the tour, officials pointed out where a restaurant will go 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, although not fully installed.

All but $5 million of the funding that was needed is in place with funding 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 have 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 maybe 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 some place 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.

Once 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 being used until all the new gates are built, Mulcahy 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 during Wednesday’s tour.

“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 they 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.

A timelapse video of the terminal construction so far is available here. To take a 3D tour of what the new terminal will look like scan the QR codes here.