Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) is undergoing a $3 billion, 25-year overhaul to accommodate growing passenger traffic, with immediate plans including restroom renovations, expansion of terminals, addition of new runways and parking areas, and improved ground transportation facilities. Terminal 2's restroom remodel is just one component of the extensive redevelopment efforts.
Photo courtesy of the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority
More than 15 million travelers will pass through Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) in 2024, and chances are most of them will use the restroom before or after their flight.
All that flushing, hand washing and roller-bag pulling can be hard on a bathroom. That is why, 16 years after the first phase of Terminal 2 opened, the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority plans to redo all the restrooms in the passenger concourses.
The airport calls it a "restroom refresh," because along with stained floors and dented trash cans, the facilities are showing their age in other ways, the Raleigh News & Observer noted Aug. 19. The wall tiles, floating sinks and other finishes that were fashionable in 2008 now look dated, according to Jaymes Carter, the airport's vice president of buildings.
In mid-August, the Airport Authority approved a contract with EVOKE Studio Architecture of Durham to design the new bathrooms and prepare plans for construction. That work is planned to begin in the fall of 2025 and be done gradually over nearly two years.
"As you can imagine, with bathrooms and restrooms being so important, it's going to have to be a phased approach," Carter told the newspaper.
The $20.2 million project does not include the restrooms in the main ticketing hall. Next year, RDU expects to begin expanding that part of the terminal, where it will add more ticket counters, baggage carousels, security checkpoints and restroom capacity.
And over in Terminal 1, RDU plans to add two new restrooms at the south end of the concourse. Five airlines have joined Southwest in Terminal 1 in recent years, and demand for restrooms has increased, although that effort has not yet gotten under way, the News & Observer noted.
Durable Materials That Look Like Wood
There are 23 men's, women's and family restrooms in the concourses at Terminal 2. The renovations will not change their footprint, general layout or the number of toilets, urinals and sinks.
But they will look and feel very different, Carter explained. EVOKE has developed some early sketches and concepts that play off the warm colors of the wood trusses that support the roof.
"They've done a really good job of working with the existing feeling of what it's like to be in the terminal," he said.
David Kushner, who represents Wake County on the Airport Authority, wanted reassurance that the material that looks like wood will hold up to wear and tear.
"Once we do this, it's going to be 14 or 15 years before we do it again," he said. "So, we want to make sure that we're picking materials that are at least as durable as what we already have now. Because, despite the fact that the current restrooms look dated, they've actually held up very well from a service point of view."
Bigger RDU Projects Still to Come
But the Terminal 2 upgrades at Raleigh-Durham International are just a small component of the major changes proposed for the North Carolina airport over the next decade.
Earlier this year, the News & Observer reported that RDU plans $3 billion worth of construction projects to try to keep up with the growth of the Triangle, which includes the cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.
Those plans include:
- Building a new main runway.
- Tripling the size of the largest remote parking lot.
- Expanding both passenger terminals.
- Improving the flow of traffic.
- Creating new ground transportation and central car rental facilities within walking distance of the terminals.
Much of the work is laid out in a 25-year comprehensive plan called Vision 2040 that the airport adopted in 2016, then put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now that RDU is again handling record numbers of passengers, it is moving ahead with projects that will turn the airport into a busy construction zone in the years ahead.
Construction will seem to drag on as contractors do their work while the airport continues to function around them, noted Bill Sandifer, RDU's chief development officer.
"If we had a greenfield site, we could do it quickly," he told RDU's governing board last spring. "Imagine redoing your kitchen while you're living in your house. It's more complicated."
The centerpiece of Vision 2040 is the airport's new primary runway.
RDU officially broke ground on a replacement for its main runway on the west side of the airfield last fall, much of which has entailed moving utility lines and preparing to move dirt. When the new runway opens later this decade, the current one will be converted into a taxiway.
The new runway is the most critical of the airport's construction projects; the existing strip was completed in 1986 and today requires costly repairs to stay viable. The new runway will stretch 10,639 ft., or 639 ft. longer than the existing one, to allow all cargo and passenger carriers now doing business at the airport to operate their planes fully loaded.
More parking also is planned for the airport, as RDU is nearly tripling the size of Park Economy 3, its largest remote parking area near Aviation Parkway and Interstate 40. The first of the 7,000 new spaces will be ready next year, with more coming online in 2026. The lights, message boards, ticket machines and bathrooms at the lot will be powered in part by the sun after the airport installs solar panels on the roofs of some of the covered walkways.
In addition, with the main passenger terminal at RDU now at capacity, a larger Terminal 2 is necessary. The first step to enlarge the building will focus on the "landside," with expansion along the road to add more ticket counters, baggage carousels, and security checkpoints, as well as more space for the Customs and Border Protection facility for incoming international passengers.
Contractors are working on final designs, and construction is expected to begin in 2025.
Eventually, RDU also wants to enlarge the airfield side of the terminal, increasing the number of gates from 33 to 53 by 2050 by adding wings to the existing concourses. That work cannot begin until the new runway is completed, the Raleigh news source learned.
The smaller Terminal 1 has nine gates, and RDU is currently in the process of determining when to add up to 15 more. By the end of this year, consultants are expected to finish conceptual designs, renderings and rough cost estimates that will help airport leaders decide how much to expand the terminal.
RDU Set to Get Better Ground Transportation
Additionally, RDU has preliminary designs for a consolidated rental car complex (CONRAC) that would move all the rental companies into a new multi-story garage north of the main parking decks, according to the Airport Authority. Travelers will be able to reach the counters and cars on foot from the terminals, thus eliminating the need for the shuttle buses that now circle the airport campus.
Along with the CONRAC, the airport will have a new ground transportation center on the first floor of the parking decks where taxis, hotel shuttles, limousines and rideshare companies such as Uber and Lyft will pick up and drop off passengers.
In conjunction with the landside expansion of Terminal 2, RDU plans to demolish and replace two parking decks closest to the building and realign John Brantley Boulevard, the airport's main parkway. The boulevard also will be shifted north to make room for the CONRAC.
Finally, RDU plans to eventually close its smaller remote lot, Park Economy 4, off International Drive, making the space available to expand the air cargo operations at the north end of the airfield.
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