The recently completed nine-acre wood roof, which has been installed over the course of 2.5 years at Portland International Airport. (Jonathan House / Portland Tribune)
The years-long project to revamp the Portland International Airport reached another milestone, the week of May 19, when the footprint of Phase 2 was completed.
That footprint, in the northwest corner of the airport, includes competition of the now-iconic wooden roof. The new portion runs about 220 feet wide and deep, and will cover the transitional space between Concourses B and C, as well as a spiffy new Alaska Airlines lounge with an expansive view of forested highlands.
Most of the new wing is expected to be open to the public in the first quarter of 2026. It will include 10 more local restaurants and shops; exits for arriving passengers and banks of private, all-user restrooms with tile mosaics created by local artisans.
Portland-area journalists decked out in hardhats and safety vests got to look around backstage on Thursday, May 22.
"The roof is modular, so we could put it up in stages," said George Seaman, project manager for the Port of Portland, which owns the airport. "This new roof is probably the biggest piece. I bet it weighs one-point-five, maybe one-point-six million pounds."
All 18 modules of the roof were constructed at the same time, nearly five years ago, and mounted atop each section when needed. Four of the 18 modules have yet to be erected.
"The completion of this area is such a milestone," said Allison Ferré, media relations manager with the port. "But just to be clear, there will be more. We're not done here."
For now, travelers will still see imposing walls blocking off large chunks of the airport, and the walk from airplanes and toward the exits and baggage claim remains a long haul. That walk will grow much shorter when the new wing opens early next year.
"All this, here?" said Seaman, standing amid the 70,000-square-foot construction zone, with its poured cement and iron frames exposed. "All of this is Phase 2."
The so-called "south node" will serve as the exit routes for Concourses B and C. When ready, it will include new escalators to take people to baggage claim and to the MAX light rail station embedded within the airport.
"That area over there," Seaman said, pointing, "That's going to be a meeter/greeter area with the throw-back carpets. For selfies."
Seaman has been with this project from jump. Ten years ago, he wrote the original requests for proposals, or RFPs, to bring aboard architectural and engineering firms. Thanks to a career at IBM that took him from upstate New York to Colorado Springs, he'd worked on some big projects. "But never anything this big," he added.
A second floor of the wing will serve as a spacious lounge for Alaska Airlines, complete with massive glass walls called curtain walls, which will face west.
The Alaska lounge likely won't be completed until the second quarter of 2026.
Nathaniel Slayton of ZGF Architects, who designed the place, stood amid the construction zone on May 22 -- with its scissor-lifts, hard-hatted workers, a ginormous American flag and blue kiddy pools for catching the rain -- and imagined what Alaska passengers will see in less than a year. "They'll be looking out at the West Hills and Tabor and Rocky Butte. You could only get that with a big curtain wall like this. So that's what we designed."
Of all the gosh-gee-whiz features of the wing, George Seaman is most excited talking about the seismic safety features. He points to plates atop gigantic, Y-shaped pillars that will allow the roof to move independently of the rest of the building.
"The roof can move 24 inches, taking the curtain wall with it," he said. "That's 24 inches up or down, or side to side. It's designed to handle the Cascadia Subduction Zone's big earthquake."
Seaman said the port also is in negotiations with the federal government to get the funds to create "resilient runways" designed to stay intact during a massive earthquake. "Subduction quakes liquify the ground at something like 150 feet (down)," he said. "There aren't that many runways anywhere that can handle that. There's one in Japan, I think."
As he talks, workers one floor below are carving out sections of the flooring. The PDX terminal originally was built in 1956, and some of that frame still exists.
"Not much we can do about that," Seaman added. "But the seismic joints they're digging will let different sections of the building move independently from each other."