Meet the architects behind San Antonio’s newest airport terminal, set to open in 2028
More than a year has passed since San Antonio got a preview of a planned new airport terminal and two months since officials broke ground.
Now those early design concepts have been set in motion as the two architecture firms hired by the city in 2022, through a $3.8 million contract, work toward the expected 2028 completion date of a new terminal for the San Antonio International Airport (SAT).
Dallas-based Corgan, a firm with offices in San Antonio and 18 cities around the world, is teamed up with the nationally recognized firm Lake Flato to design a modern $1 billion concourse.
At $1.68 billion, the airport’s expansion is the largest capital project in the city’s history.
City officials broke ground on the project in early December and site work began the following day.
While the design development documents are due in February in keeping with the construction timeline, the architects are in it for the long haul, working hand-in-hand with the general contractor, Hensel Phelps, until it opens three years from now.
From an office building just outside the airport gates, both firms are huddling with airport officials over the drawings and specifications required to build a terminal that will expand the airport by 17 gates.
Among the occupants in the Airport Center office space are the planning engineers and Deputy Aviation Director Tim O’Krongley.
O’Krongley has a long history with building airports. He was on the team that built the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in the 1990s, the Boeing facility at Port SA and Terminal B at the San Antonio airport.
He said the new SAT terminal is the best project he’s worked on and different from the others in that the city has employed a construction manager at risk method to build the terminal, a program that brings the contractor in early on a project.
Corgan has had offices in San Antonio for over 25 years, and will soon move into the 19th floor of Frost Tower. The firm also works in education, architecture, data centers and interior workplace design, and its San Antonio clients have included area school districts, CyrusOne and CPS Energy.
But it also has a long history with aviation projects — going back 70 years and resulting in a large portfolio of work, said John Trupiano, principal at Corgan.
The more than 200 airports Corgan has had a hand in include the Dallas Fort Worth and Los Angeles (LAX) international airports, LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports in New York, and Shanghai Pudong in China.
“Pretty much if you’ve flown there, there’s a good chance that we have done work there,” Trupiano said.
While SAT, with its roughly 11 million passengers a year, is no LAX, Trupiano said his firm is looking to deliver the kind of experience travelers expect in a major airport, “but do it in a growing and vibrant community.”
Trupiano has spent his entire architecture career, more than two decades, working on aviation projects. That despite never having flown on an airplane until the day in 1998 when Corgan flew him from Kansas City to Dallas for a job interview.
“That one experience really just solidified that this is where I wanted to be,” he said. “From that day onwards … it just kept feeding on that passion. Now I do projects all across the globe.”
As principal in charge of the SAT terminal project, Trupiano leads the design team made up of 25 different consultant firms and the Lake Flato architects.
The team works together on all components of the design, with each firm offering distinct expertise, he said.
Travelers will enter the terminal through a paseo, a 60-foot offset between the departure and arrival lanes and the building facade. The landscaped outdoor space is meant to reflect San Antonio’s waterways such as the River Walk.
Entering the building, a traveler will see limestone and wood used and muted earth tones.
