Quick update: The Concourse E expansion opened in 2020. Read more about the new PDX.
The new Concourse E represents a few big “firsts” for our region: The first-ever Tillamook Market outside of the Oregon Coast. The first permanent installations in Portland from world-acclaimed artist Jacob Hashimoto. And the first new gates opened at PDX in two decades.
We bet you’ve already seen some of the headlines about these milestones. But how about taking a guided tour of the new concourse? You might not have had a chance to see it for yourself just yet. (Unless you’re among the 2,000 builders who helped bring the vision to life.)
Some good news: We’re here to show you around — virtually, for now. We get that photos of ice cream aren’t anything like the real thing. So we’ve tapped a few architects, builders and artists for this insider tour. And whenever you get the chance to visit in real life, we’ll be ready with scoops of your favorite flavors and endless #PNW views.
Jacob Hashimoto’s flying kites
Let’s kick off our tour with Jacob’s two hanging art pieces. His presence in the concourse is sort of a homecoming for the New York City-based artist. Jacob grew up in Walla Walla, Washington. In his interview with PDX Next, he calls the Pacific Northwest “my aesthetic and creative home.” You can catch glimpses of his regional inspiration in both “The City” and “The Sky,” as the pieces are named.
“I started by looking at a map. It turns out that the shape of the city limits is a really interesting form. We've taken the outline of Portland and used it as the footprint for both pieces so that if you looked at them from above, they look just like the shape of the city,” Jacob says. “Both of the suspended sculptures are also built in the same way, using thousands of hanging disks.”
Look close enough at the kite-like discs and you’ll spot some familiar graphics. For example, you'll see the old airport carpet and the City of Portland’s flag embedded in the sculptures, which soar like clouds above the concourse’s common areas. If you were able to accurately count them all, you’d find 450 patterns and 11,000 kites.
Walls of glass and views for miles
At the east end of the concourse extension, you’ve found your next photo op at the airport: a pretty epic view of Mt. Hood. Architects designed the space to take advantage of the surrounding scenery including the snowcapped mountain in the distance as well as all the runway action. In all, the concourse’s sweeping walls of windows contain 350,000 pounds of glass.
“Because of its high ceilings and the lack of columns, there are amazing views of the Columbia River, of Mt. Hood. It’s such an open, inviting space to be in,” says Pooja Kashyap in her PDX Next profile. Pooja is an architect at Hennebery Eddy, where she’s worked to make sure the Concourse E designs meet the highest standards for environmental sustainability.
Concourse E’s efficiency helps PDX reduce lighting energy and water use. And during construction, the team recycled 99% of construction waste and used 84% Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood. “What makes me proud to be on this project is that it’s on track to meet LEED Gold, which is not an easy achievement for an airport,” Pooja says.
Ice cream (and more) at Tillamook
Before Concourse E opened, you’d have to hitch a ride all the way to the Oregon Coast to visit the Pacific Northwest’s iconic creamery. Well, now you only need to make your way to PDX. Concourse E has the only Tillamook Market built outside of Tillamook County in the century-long history of the farmer-owned co-op.
It’s a pretty big deal if you ask Caitlin Powell, project manager at Skanska — the construction firm that brought in 75 subcontractors to build the concourse. “I'm really excited for [the public] to eat at the Tillamook ice cream bar,” she says in her PDX Next profile. “I am a huge ice cream fan. I could eat it for breakfast if I let myself.” (We see you, Caitlin.)
If you’re not quite in the mood for ice cream, Tillamook has cheesy burgers and more “dairy done right” on the market’s menu. It’s one of 10 shopping and dining spaces inside E, which will individually open in the coming months. Along with Tillamook, the first spots to turn on their lights are Calliope (accessories and gift boutique), Jamba and Your Northwest Travel Mart, with more of your favorite restaurants and bars in the works.
(Credit: Tillamook)
The Building By the Numbers
We’ll wrap up with a few facts and figures. These give you a sense of the scale of this addition — one of several PDX Next projects bringing more local character to the airport.
- New airline gates: 6 (first new gates at PDX in nearly 20 years)
- Shopping and dining locations: 10
- Total gates on the concourse: 13
- Building dimensions: 830 feet added for a gain of 148,000 square feet of terminal space
- Window glass: 350,000 pounds of glass installed by local glaziers
- Project budget: $215 million (funded primarily by the airlines serving PDX)
- Time to build: 2 years, 3 months (started March 2018)
- People involved: More than 2,000 (architects, designers, construction trades, artists, etc.)
- Contractors: 1 prime contractor (Skanska) assisted by more than 75 local subcontractors
- Architecture firms: 2 (Hennebery Eddy and Fentress)
Tom Strong - Chief Executive Officer, Skokomish Indian Tribe, Skokomish Washington
"We're foresters in that we're stewards," says Tom Strong, Chief Executive Officer of the Skokomish Indian Tribe, which manages 2,000 acres of Washington forests for its 800 tribal members. "We're not cutting and planting, seeking to develop our lands into a commodity. Instead, we're doing it to restore the forest."
Over the past 100 years, the two dams on the North Fork Skokomish River have had a major impact on the entire ecosystem of Skokomish land. "We want to restore the entire Hood Canal watershed," Tom says. The forests are just one part.
Selling wood from Douglas fir trees the tribe selectively thinned will help fund this restoration. "We don't have an endless amount of money," Tom says. "But we would like to think we've got an endless amount of time."
Ben Hayes - Co-owner, Hyla Woods, Cherry Grove, Oregon
Ben Hayes is a sixth-generation forester who manages Hyla Woods, outside Cherry Grove, Oregon, with his father, Peter. He is also a sustainable-forestry consultant. At Hyla Woods, the Hayes experiment with selective thinning and patch cutting, instead of clear-cutting, to foster diversity of tree species, ages, and sizes.
"When you look 100 years out, having greater complexity in terms of species and the structure of the forest, you can increase the forest's resilience in the face of extreme weather and drought," he says.
"We're working toward a model of forestry that you could practice for the perpetual future,” Ben says. “It's a model that lifts up both rural and urban communities and the ecosystems we rely on."
Richard and Ann Hanschu - Owners, Doneen, Forest Grove, Oregon
Ann Hanschu's father first bought land outside Forest Grove, Oregon, in 1956. Ann grew up trailing her father around the forest, learning from him. The Hanschus now have three children, four grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
Richard says, "We're planting trees that our grandchildren will see the profits from — not even our children. It's long-range thinking."
"A lot of the timber is older,” Ann adds. “We're laddering it with trees of different age groups — some 30-40 years old, some 10-20 years old — so the land can continue to produce a sustainable amount of wood."
Herman Flamenco - Central Cascades Conservation Forester, The Nature Conservancy, Cle Elum, Washington
"We know historically that the stands we're working on were overstocked," says Herman Flamenco, Central Cascades conservation forester for the Nature Conservancy, of the 50,000 acres outside Cle Elum, Washington, the organization manages. Thinning the trees welcomes in light and biodiversity.
Some loggers in the region worry that this low-impact approach to forestry yields less lumber, and less profit, than clear-cutting. One local outfit took on this labor-intensive challenge, selectively harvesting Doug fir trees from steep slopes.
"Western Washington is wetter. In our dry climate, there's less moisture and increased fire risk," Herman says. "As we look at climate change, it's just going to get dryer. We want to make sure we can keep our forests around."
In the 1950s, back when people wore fancy hats to the airport, PDX’s main terminal had brown terrazzo floors.
By the 1970s, blue carpet sporting the old Port of Portland logo replaced the terrazzo. The airport was so concerned about keeping the carpet clean that we banned gum-chewing indoors.
In the 1980s, PDX replaced the ski-chalet paneling in the Clocktower Plaza with high ceilings and skylights, but kept the blue carpet.
SRG Partnership, a Portland-based architecture firm, designed the pattern for the now-iconic carpet on the layout of the airport runways.
The Clocktower Plaza, post-1988, with the iconic carpet.
The Clocktower Plaza (before its demolition in 2021-22) with the new carpet.
The flexible interior spaces were designed with the future of travel in mind — and to give you plenty of comfortable spots to recharge before your next flight.
Two permanent installations from acclaimed contemporary artist Jacob Hashimoto hang like clouds above the concourse’s common areas.
Shops and restaurants are clustered together like city blocks, with a pedestrian-friendly scale and lots of room to spread out.
PDX’s swanky new bar, Juliett, honors women in aviation with mid-20th-century style, top-class cocktails, and local wines and beers.
Sky-high windows fill the interior with daylight while maximizing the concourse extension’s energy efficiency.
At the east end of the concourse, a wall of windows opens up this epic view of Mt. Hood, where you’ll definitely want to pose for a photo before takeoff.
The Concourse E extension project is the dedicated home for Southwest Airlines at PDX, with six new gates.
Remember the view of Mt. Hood on Concourse E? It’s coming back, brighter than ever.
Tillamook’s menu includes the best of the classics with fried cheese curds and a signature grilled cheese.
Calliope takes its name from one of Oregon’s native hummingbirds and showcases creative and playful keepsakes.
Grab your favorite book, magazine or newspaper at Your Northwest Travel Mart.
Concourse B's 38-foot-high ceilings and 6,900 square feet of windows don't just let light in. They let you watch the airport in action. "I think this airport gave us a chance to celebrate the romance of flight," says Gene Sandoval of ZGF, the architecture firm that designed the new concourse.
ZGF Architects was inspired to bring the Pacific Northwest’s natural world indoors. You can contemplate the plants hanging from the ceiling and the Oregon white-oak walls as you relax in B’s comfy new seats. (Bonus: More power adapters!)
RYAN! Feddersen’s art installation, which fills the concourse, is made up of three interconnected pieces. The “Sentinel” landscapes and abstract “Habitat Tiles” are pictured here.
RYAN! is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. She draws inspiration from the region’s traditions and landscape for these pieces, which include the gently rolling “Cloud Walk” overhead.
Nicole and David Mouton, in partnership with HMSHost, opened an outpost of Portland’s beloved Screen Door Restaurant on Concourse B. Find Screen Door’s legendary fried chicken and waffles here from breakfast until dinnertime.
Sam and Nick Purvis, the brothers behind Good Coffee, source fresh coffee beans and teas from all over the world. Pick up a pastry or a bag of beans, too!
Our new rental car center opened in November 2021.
All rental car brands are now on-site at PDX – no more shuttles to pick up your car.
Perez Westbrooks' colorful digital mural celebrates Northwest flora.
Ben Butler's swirling wood sculpture is made from reclaimed Douglas fir.
The new facility also adds 30 ADA parking spots, more than 30 electric vehicle charging stations, and 2,200 long-term parking spaces to the airport.
Adding more lanes to our new, relocated exit toll plaza helps you leave PDX more quickly.
Every design decision we make is about keeping the heart and soul of PDX intact. You’ll see homages to all the things you love about our city and region in the new airport designs.
You’ll notice subtle nods to the Pacific Northwest landscape throughout the space. Natural light, living trees, and native Oregon foliage may give you the feeling of walking through a park.
The new terminal’s wooden ceiling, made from sustainably grown, local Doug fir, might remind you of daylight filtering through forest canopies.
This will be your new view when entering the spacious ticket lobby at PDX. The nine-acre wood roof is so distinctive you’ll be able to spot it from the air.
The ripples and currents of pristine Northwest rivers inspired the new terminal’s curvy profile.
Expanding the heart of PDX creates more space for our beloved local shops and restaurants — not to mention local humans (and visitors, too).