The Dane County Regional Airport is undergoing an $85 million expansion

The largest expansion project in the history of Madison's Dane County Regional Airport is nearly complete.

The project adds 90,000 square feet to the airport, including operational facilities, numerous traveler amenities and three additional gates to accommodate more flights and passengers. The $85-million expansion was funded by "some federal grants but mainly airport funds and user fees," said the airport's director of marketing and communications, Michael Riechers.

The first phase of the two-part expansion opened to the public in June. It included all of the new construction on the airport: the gates, operational infrastructure and passenger-facing amenities.

Now, all that's left is phase two: demolishing the old, curved south terminal wing of the airport, which is no longer in use. Three old gates will be demolished in Phase Two, but six were added in Phase One, meaning the airport ultimately netted three additional gates. Phase Two is scheduled to be complete by the end of March or beginning of April, Riechers said.

What new features can travelers find at the Madison airport?

Opening the Phase One gates first allowed the airport to commence Phase Two without impacting travel.

Half of the Phase One addition, or 45,000 square feet, is ground-floor airport infrastructure, such as heating and cooling, IT, and employee workshops and breakrooms. The upstairs half of the addition includes a variety of public spaces for travelers.

"The size of this project allowed us to add a ton of new, cool features," Riechers said. "Some of the features are required by the (Federal Aviation Administration) for airports to have, but given how much space we were adding, we were able to do a lot of cool things with those requirements."

For example, every commercial airport has to have a service animal relief area, but DCRA's is now much bigger and more high-tech than required.

"It's its own room with its own HVAC, so it never smells," Riechers said. "The whole floor is this silicon flooring that's completely sealed, and when the room is empty, the whole floor 'flushes' itself."

The expansion also added free, private meeting rooms for travelers, which Riechers said seem to be "always in use."

Additionally, a brightly-colored family play area with rubberized flooring and climbable furniture for kids was added. The space features a projector that displays educational games, puzzles and brain teasers.

The airport also revamped its nursing suite for parents. The space includes a restroom, sinks, lounge chair, diaper changing area, microwave, ice machine, bottle wash station and more, Riechers said. Plus, the airport added a separate caregiver restroom for travelers with disabilities and their companions, which features an adult changing table with a capacity of 500 pounds.

Expansion reflects the airport's history with a modern touch

Riechers said one consideration with the expansion was ensuring it meshed well with the airport's Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired prairie-style architecture.

One of many travelers' favorite new touches is the large, to-scale Terrazzo floor mural of Madison's Isthmus lakes in the new south end of the airport, which features the depth contours of the lakes and points out various Madison landmarks, Riechers said.

Due to the pandemic, no flights were affect by airport expansion construction

The airport began considering an expansion around 2019, following two consecutive years of passenger growth.

"(We) realized we'd be capacity-limited if the growth continued. So, even though more planes or more people might want to use our airport, we just wouldn't have the ability to accommodate that volume," Riechers said. "Our biggest constraint was gate space, the number of places that an airplane can park at our airport. So, we set out to figure out how we could add more gates."

After about 18 months of design and planning, the airport was ready to expand. However, by then, air travel numbers had plummeted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In just one month, the airport's travel numbers dropped 96%, Riechers said. But, the airport decided to move forward with construction and broke ground in 2021.

"We had the vast majority of construction done by the time our travel numbers really started to rebound ... which meant that zero air travel was affected by the major construction we had going on," Riechers said.

With the expansion nearly complete, Riechers said it allows the airport to "grow beyond" what it was limited to in the past. Since the completion of Phase One, the airport was able to welcome a new airline, Breeze Airways.

The new, Utah-based budget airline began offering nonstop flights from Madison to Tampa and Orlando, Florida, last month. Breeze will offer nonstop service from Madison to Los Angeles, beginning in May.

More: Breeze Airways coming to Madison airport with nonstop flights to Tampa, Orlando

More: You'll soon be able to fly nonstop to Los Angeles from Madison

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dane County airport's $85 million makeover to be done by April 2024