Come Friday, there will be new pedestrian and vehicular entrances to Terminal 1 at the San Diego airport, part of an ongoing project to replace the aging facility with an expanded building capable of handling far more passengers.
Airport officials are advising visitors to be prepared for the new entrances off of North Harbor Drive, which will come up sooner than the existing entrance to Terminal 1.
Drivers heading westbound on North Harbor Drive will see the new entrance near Liberator Way. They will be entering the terminal on what will be the first section of a new on-airport entrance roadway that will take motorists to the front of the existing Terminal 1 where they will exit at ground level. At a future date, the western end of that roadway will be realigned to go to the newly constructed terminal. Once completed, it will split into an elevated departures roadway and a ground-level arrivals roadway.
Airport spokeswoman Nicole Hall cautioned that drivers, as they approach the new terminal entrance, should slow down and watch for signs that will alert them to where they should turn. While the new entrance and on-airport roadway, once completed, will significantly improve traffic flow, ongoing construction, for now, can mean potential slowdowns, and drivers should be prepared to share the road with construction vehicles, Hall said.
For pedestrians, the changed access will be via a new path that begins near the intersection of North Harbor Drive and Harbor Island Drive.
The new, permanent entrances will additionally allow construction crews to continue their work on the new Terminal 1 parking structure, which is scheduled to open in late 2024. The five-level, 5,200-space parking plaza will have 750 more parking spaces than the old Terminal 1 surface lot. Ten percent of the spaces will be equipped with charging stations for electric vehicles.
The first phase of the new Terminal 1, which will initially have 19 gates, is scheduled to open in 2025. Once entirely completed in 2027, the terminal will have a total of 30 gates.
