Travelers rolling into Nashville International Airport in the next few years are going to see a very different front door. Airport officials have pulled back the curtain on plans for a much larger rental car complex paired with a new parking garage, all part of BNA’s sweeping New Horizon expansion.
Initial site work is already underway in the open area in front of the existing parking garages. Crews are prepping the footprint, and that means travelers may spot occasional overnight lane closures around the terminal while the heavy equipment moves in. The airport authority says the future consolidated layout is meant to cut down on shuttle traffic and speed up pickup and return times for rental car customers.
What BNA Will Build
New Horizon planning documents lay out a consolidated rental car facility sized for about 4,800 vehicles, paired with a roughly 3,000-space parking garage. The Messer Sundt joint venture is serving as design-builder for the project, which the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority has slotted into a larger phase aimed at preparing BNA to handle up to 40 million passengers a year.
The authority lists this phase with a price tag of about $3 billion and an expected 2029 completion date for the roadway and parking components, according to Nashville International Airport.
Construction Activity And Traffic
Drivers looping around Terminal Drive and the airport garages are already getting a preview of construction season. Overnight partial and single-lane closures have begun as crews clear staging areas and shift equipment into place.
Local reporting notes that the closures are currently limited to overnight hours and that the airport has stressed one lane will remain open at all times to keep traffic moving. Officials are urging motorists to follow posted signage and build in some extra time when heading to or from the terminal, as reported by WSMV.
How Renting A Car Will Change
The new setup follows a consolidated rental car, or CONRAC, model. Instead of scattering services around the property, customer counters, quick-turn operations such as fueling and car washing, and vehicle storage will all land inside a single multilevel structure connected to the terminal by a pedestrian link.
Request for proposals documents describe roughly 3,500 ready-return stalls inside the facility, plus about 1,300 staging spaces for vehicles that are not yet assigned to customers. The project scope also includes the supporting parking garage and roadway improvements needed to feed the complex. Those procurement materials and bid listings spell out the CONRAC’s size and the teams that vied to build it, per ConstructConnect.
Timeline And Where To Watch
New Horizon’s terminal access roadway improvements, which include the CONRAC and the new garage, are slated for completion in 2029. Design work for the program began in 2022, according to Nashville International Airport.
Airport officials have signaled that there are incentives in place to speed up certain road elements, and they are posting ongoing construction updates in the airport newsroom as work shifts from site preparation to vertical construction. Local outlets are keeping tabs on each new phase as it unfolds, with coverage from WKRN News 2 and traffic and closure alerts from WSMV.
