Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport opened its first batch of renovated terminal restrooms Thursday, marking the start of a $5 million project to overhaul four sets of facilities across the concourse. The newly finished restrooms sit near the C1 gate, stripped down to the studs and rebuilt with a modern layout designed to ease foot traffic for travelers moving through the busy concourse.
The work was carried out by Construction Works Inc., which gutted the C1 restrooms before installing the updated design, according to AL.com. With that first phase complete, the Birmingham Airport Authority says crews will immediately begin work on a second set of restrooms, this time near the B1 gate, which will close while renovations proceed.
Airport officials are framing the rollout as intentionally gradual. Birmingham Airport Authority spokesperson Marcelo Lima said the project is phased so that only one set of restrooms is closed at any given time, a structure meant to keep the terminal functional for passengers throughout construction. Lima said the goal is to minimize inconveniences while providing first-class traveler facilities, per the same report.
Federal Dollars Cover Most of the Cost
The restroom overhaul is being funded almost entirely through federal money. Federal Aviation Administration Airport Terminal Program grants issued under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are covering 95% of the $5 million price tag, according to the airport's own disclosure as reported by AL.com. The project is expected to wrap up by October 2027, with the remaining two restroom sets still to be tackled on a rolling basis.
The restroom work is just one piece of a much larger wave of capital spending underway at BHM. The airport authority also began planning in September 2026 for $19 million in primary runway improvements, with construction on that separate project scheduled to start in February 2027, the outlet notes. Those runway upgrades, detailed by the Birmingham Business Journal, call for rebuilding a 2,000-foot section at the end of Runway 6/24 to a depth of 3 feet and width of 150 feet, with the runway expected to stay open for most of the project and close for a few days.
Cargo Growth Driving Runway Work
Birmingham-based Dunn Construction landed the primary $17 million construction contract for that runway reconstruction, according to The Williams Group. The reinforcement is being driven by a surge in heavy air cargo traffic, including weekly freight flights from Germany tied to a 2023 logistics partnership and a 53,000-square-foot air cargo facility that opened at BHM on June 27, 2024, the same source reports. Older sections at the end of Runway 24 were built decades ago and were never engineered for today's heavier international cargo aircraft.
Parking is getting an upgrade too. Airport authority board members authorized $4.3 million in August 2026 to install a smart parking guidance system in BHM's 5,000-space parking deck, a project the Birmingham Business Journal reports will include real-time space availability indicators, camera guidance, highway signage along Messer Airport Highway, and a companion mobile app. The AL.com report confirms the airport will begin implementing that parking-finder system as part of its broader modernization push.
A Growing Airport Under Pressure to Keep Up
The flurry of projects comes as BHM posts some of its strongest passenger numbers in years. The airport served 3,283,164 commercial passengers in 2025, up from 3,243,023 the year before, keeping its status as Alabama's busiest airport, according to data compiled by Road Genius. That growth has coincided with Breeze Airways launching operations at BHM in July 2026, adding non-stop flights to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, as previously reported by Bham Now.
The airport authority appears well-positioned to absorb the spending. Fitch Ratings upgraded the authority's revenue bond rating from A- to A with a stable outlook in December 2024, citing strong liquidity and cash reserves that exceeded its $96.9 million in outstanding revenue bond debt. The current restroom and runway work follows BHM's last major terminal overhaul, a $201 million modernization completed between 2011 and 2014 that opened Concourses A, B and C and later earned LEED Gold certification in 2016, according to Road Genius.
Beyond the terminal, private investment is also flowing into the airport grounds. Fixed-base operator Atlantic Aviation broke ground in June 2025 on a $40 million private aviation campus redevelopment at BHM, adding a new executive terminal, two 30,000-square-foot hangars, and 7 acres of ramp space, per Road Genius. For now, though, the most visible change for everyday travelers remains the restrooms, with the B1 gate facilities next in line for closure as Construction Works Inc. moves to the second phase of the four-part project.
