June 25 ,2025

More gates will be added to the Sioux Falls Regional Airport, possibly expanding the current seven to 12, the Airport Authority decided on Wednesday.

A pared-down version of the original expansion, known as the base plan, will permit the construction of a concourse and a set of restrooms, said executive director Dan Letellier. It is the bare-bones version of a proposed $108 million expansion that offered an option to add expanded seating with space for more concessions and retail.

The project was broken into four bid packages. The first bid package to provide a building shell came in below estimates at $23.5 million. The second bid package, also approved Wednesday, will put $12 million toward concrete for the terminal apron.

“It will get us a good start,” Letellier said.

The airport board is “pretty confident we have the funding in place to do the full base plan,” he said. “Up until today, we’ve had ‘off-ramps’ where we could just stop if we didn’t feel we could put the funding together or it was coming in more expensive than we thought.”

Earlier this year, the board faced a potential setback when hoped-for state and federal funding did not materialize. The airport wanted to be included as part of a $30 million appropriation for airports statewide that failed to gain approval in the most recent legislative session.

Journey Construction earlier was hired as the construction manager at risk.

Of the initial $24 million or so needed for the first bid package, the airport already has $16 million in federal funding. The remaining $8 million will come from airport reserves. Moving forward with other bid packages will involve looking at issuing revenue bonds, Letellier said.

The base plan will provide five gates, but the actual net increase is four. That’s because the current Gate 1 will be closed and moved to the new terminal, south of the current building. One of the alternate bids, if the funding is available, would add an additional gate, bringing the total to 12.

The existing gates were designed for aircraft seating 50 to 70 people, but as aircraft size has grown in response to a shortage of pilots, the planes currently serving Sioux Falls range from 72 to 114 seats. Additional gates are needed to expand service.

At peak times, seating areas are overwhelmed to the point of standing room only, the airport has reported. Projections show that the city should be at 11 gates and more than 32,000 square feet of space for passengers by 2026, compared with the seven gates and 10,000 square feet available today.

“We’re like any hub airport, when at certain times of day where every gate was full, at certain times it’s standing room only,” Letellier said. “At 9 in morning or in the midafternoon, there’s hardly any. It’s peaks and valleys, and the challenge is in the peak operating times. We couldn’t add more flights even if the airlines wanted to.”

Sioux Falls Regional Airport, which set monthly records in January and February, reported passenger numbers have increased 8.5 percent year to date. The count increased 9.2 percent in May over the same month in 2024. The airport’s new parking ramp has seen multiple days at capacity in its long-term levels. Food and beverage, the gift shop and car rental all reported increases.

Construction of the hallway, gates and restrooms could start as early as August, Letellier said. Depending on how much is built, an 18- to 24-month construction window is predicted. Work on the terminal apron could start in the next week or two.

The construction will not impact on any of the public parking spaces, but aircraft parking will be more of a challenge. When Gate 1 is taken out of service, airlines might have to tow their planes more often than they do now.

Moving forward with this project is an exciting time for the airport, Letellier said.

“We have every intention to do the complete building, but we still have to continue to work with local and state partners and the federal delegation to make sure we can get the funding together,” he said.

“We’ve done a lot of analysis to determine do we really need this, and it’s yes. We have grown a number of flights and certainly a number of passengers. We’ve seen 3 percent growth every year for the last 20 years, and in the long range, that is only expected to continue.”