{"id":423643,"date":"2026-10-09T21:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T21:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/423643\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T21:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T21:00:09","slug":"new-concourse-nears-completion-at-jacksonville-international-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/423643\/","title":{"rendered":"New concourse nears completion at Jacksonville International Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 400 contractors are hustling to complete a new concourse expected to open in late January at Jacksonville International Airport.<\/p>\n

Workers are putting final touches on the 165,000-square-foot Concourse B<\/a>, with six new gates, multiple restaurants, traveler clubs and more.<\/p>\n

American Airlines will move into five of the new gates before a ribbon-cutting Jan. 27, airport officials said Friday. The airport will use the sixth gate for other flights as needed<\/p>\n

\u201cOur CEO wanted us to build into the future, which is why we are building these gates now instead of the concourses being so crowded that it is waiting for us to finish building the concourse,\u201d said Davey Jones, vice president of engineering and facilities at the Jacksonville Aviation Authority. \u201cYou would rather be ahead of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Existing concourses<\/p>\n

The airport already has 20 gates on Concourses A and C. Construction on Concourse B began in spring 2024, with about 200 workers spending six days a week building the $340 million facility.<\/p>\n

The federal government is paying for the concourse through airline ticket taxes and Federal Aviation Administration trust funds.<\/p>\n

\"\"An rendering of the new Concourse B. The gallery between the main terminal and six gates is called the stem because the design looks like a martini glass. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

Concourse B will consist of three levels<\/a>. To help on busy travel days, the new concourse will have the ability to \u201cground-board\u201d passenger, using the tarmac instead of a passenger boarding bridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree of those will have ground-loading capability,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIn the past, when we had small airlines here, they had to monopolize a gate area. So what this does is allow us to go downstairs with bathrooms and gate podiums, just like up here, so you can load the aircraft by walking out to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ConcourseWork continues on Jacksonville International Airport\u2019s new Concourse B. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

Workers were installing parts of the Jax Club and Delta Sky Club on the third floor, plus roofing and utilities elsewhere during a media tour Friday. Those clubs overlook the airport as well as the food court, with room for 160 people to sit at restaurants planned to include V Pizza, Willie Jewell\u2019s barbecue, Chick-fil-A and Panda Express.<\/p>\n

Adjacent to the first set of restrooms is a pet relief area, while a big childrens\u2019 play area is nearby with big windows. More restaurants and restrooms are in the airline gate area, Jones said.<\/p>\n

Most of the 1,280 electro-chromatic windows, which automatically dim in bright sun to keep passengers cool inside, have been installed as multiple huge air conditioning units are now being tested.<\/p>\n

\"\"The stem \u2014 the walkway between the sky club, food court and new gates \u2014 shows the wing-like roof shape overhead and the floor, soon to be decorated with colorful mosaic tile pathways. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

Airport officials said the concourse will have lots of public art, from terrazzo mosaic-tiled flooring in the \u201cstem\u201d \u2014 the concourse between the clubs and gates \u2014 to locally sourced artwork. That includes moving the existing Healing Palms artwork by artist Jim Draper in the airport courtyard to separate panels under the third-floor clubs.<\/p>\n

More art will decorate the stem, including Florida landscapes viewable from the two third-floor clubs by Thom Buttner<\/a>. And the stem will be lined with more works, called The Artwalk.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we really leaned in on this wing of the airport is a celebration of what makes Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia so special,\u201d said Jennifer Cook, arts and community programs manager for the Airport Authority. \u201cSo we focused on botany, wildlife, what we do for fun, and how beautiful our sunsets and dawns are, obviously our water life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The airport\u2019s new parking garage in the early stages of construction in February 2026. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

A third parking garage<\/a> also should be done by Thanksgiving, airport officials say. The airport\u2019s other parking garages and adjacent surface lots<\/a> have been filling up fast in recent weeks. People who can\u2019t find a close spot have filled the economy lot just east of the terminal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t get enough parking soon enough, so it will be a welcome gift for travelers for the holiday season,\u201d said Airport Authority spokesperson Greg Willis.<\/p>\n

Passenger traffic is up so far this year, which could be one of the busiest in recent years, Willis said.<\/p>\n

The garage will cost an estimated $100 million, with about 2,000 spaces. The rental car pickup and return area will be changed to reduce traffic near the terminal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 400 contractors are hustling to complete a new concourse expected to open in late January at Jacksonville…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-423643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}