Airport Experience® News - Post-Conference Issue 2026

LATEST BUZZ

into a 226,530-square-foot facility across four new floors, up from 81,000 square feet. Construction kicked off in 2023, topped out at the end of 2024 and enclosed the space through 2025. Now it’s time to open. The constraint that shaped it is one SEA knows well. “We’re really landlocked and we don’t have the ability to expand outwards,” Cooper says. The solution, as with previous expansions of the central terminal and N Concourse, was to build up rather than out. The anchor of the new building is Tree at C, a central gathering space inspired by the region’s public and farmers markets, with a tiered open amphitheater, a stage for live music and airfield views. Above it, additional dining and retail draw passengers upward toward the Lookout at C, a glass encased deck with unobstructed views of the airfield and the Olympic Mountains, open to all travelers. Tenants opening in the new concourse include Great State Burger , Nanny’s BBQ, Olympia Coffee, Buffalo Wild Wings Go, Chili’s, Seattle Macaron Co. and Wanderlust, among others. An Alaska Airlines lounge of more than 20,000 square feet anchors the upper level. The building

also includes an interfaith prayer and meditation room, a nursing suite, a sensory room and a pet relief area, along with office space for airport businesses, airlines and the TSA. The C Concourse design, led by The Miller Hull Partnership and Woods Bagot , pursues LEED Gold certification. Sustainability features include fossil fuel-free systems, rooftop solar panels, electrochromic glazing, low-flow water fixtures and biophilic design strategies. “There’s more natural light coming in, environmentally friendly products—we’re really excited for this,” Cooper says. An artist-in-residence program, developed in partnership with Pilchuck Glass School and Tacoma’s Museum of Glass , produced original glass artwork for the space. Selected artists include Crystal Worl, Fumi Amano, Jaq Chartier and Marco Brambilla, among others. Cooper places the C Concourse within SEA’s longer transformation arc. “We talk about how all of this is taking us from 1970s design and customer experience to modern day. The international arrivals and N Concourse are good examples of that, and the C Concourse will reflect that too.”

Above: The anchor of the new building is Tree at C, a central gathering space inspired by the region’s public and farmers markets, with a tiered open amphitheater, a stage for live music and airfield views.

With the C Concourse opening, that modernization reaches its most ambitious expression yet. The roadway improvements project, set to reach final completion before July, addresses the first thing a passenger encounters before entering the terminal. The project shifts the entire roadway to the west, running a new retaining wall against the airfield boundary. “To highlight how little space we have to move, we had to take out a hill that sloped down to the roadway,” Cooper says. Two new lanes are added to the terminal approach from the north. One routes directly into the airport garage. The other serves hotel and shuttle traffic and delivers rideshare passengers to the third floor entry, pulling specific vehicles out of the lower drive and easing congestion at the curb. The project also brings art to the drive. A collaborative mosaic by artists Ed Marquand and Angelina Villalobos will be installed on the new retaining wall along

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AX NEWS APRIL/MAY 2026