Eugene Airport Lands $6.24 Million Federal Grant for Concourse A Expansion

Walk through Concourse A at Mahlon Sweet Field on a busy travel day and you share roughly 21,000 square feet with every other departing passenger in the terminal. Federal funding announced Monday will rebuild all of it and add nearly 10,000 square feet more.

Eugene Airport secured $6.24 million from a U.S. Department of Transportation package totaling just over $27 million, the single largest share allocated to any of the more than 25 Oregon airports in the round. The award covers two simultaneous projects: rehabilitation of 21,177 square feet of existing Concourse A space, including interior finishes, restrooms and HVAC mechanical systems, and a new 9,893-square-foot concourse addition. By comparison, Roberts Field in Redmond received $3.45 million from the same package and Mulino State Airport collected $3.18 million for pavement and hangar improvements.

The size of Eugene's share reflects a mounting capacity problem. Passenger counts at Mahlon Sweet Field climbed more than 40 percent between 2019 and 2024, but growth has stalled since 2021 because the airport has essentially run out of flight capacity. Airport director Cathryn Stephens has noted that roughly 30 percent of Lane County residents seeking nonstop service drive to Portland International instead, a competitive loss the Liftoff EUG expansion initiative is designed to address.

For travelers using Concourse A now, the most immediate changes will be modernized restrooms, upgraded seating areas and a mechanical infrastructure rebuilt to current energy efficiency and accessibility standards. The HVAC overhaul also carries a resilience benefit: airport planners have cited reliable systems as central to EUG's function as a regional logistics hub during natural disasters or emergencies. Announcing the awards, Senator Jeff Merkley described regional airports as "vital hubs" for business connectivity and disaster response. Senator Ron Wyden framed the broader federal investment as critical for small businesses and safe travel in Oregon communities.

The $6.24 million is the latest and largest injection of federal money into a project with a longer and recently turbulent funding history. The full Concourse A expansion had been estimated at roughly $21 million. A separate $5 million Bipartisan Infrastructure Law grant for the same concourse reconstruction work was temporarily frozen in 2025 when the Trump administration tried to tie airport improvement grants to immigration enforcement compliance. Eugene Airport paused the project while a court injunction resolved the legal questions, then resumed construction preparations once the earlier grant was restored.

The City of Eugene, which owns and operates Mahlon Sweet Field, will publish procurement timelines, bid documents and engineering contracts as the newly funded work moves into design and construction phases. The project will generate local contractor spending and construction employment during the build period, though a specific project schedule for the new phase had not been released by Monday afternoon.

The Concourse A overhaul fits into a broader ambition. Under the Liftoff EUG banner, Stephens has described a pathway to potentially breaking ground on a new Concourse C in roughly five years, with construction that could double EUG's overall footprint within seven to eight years and recover the share of Lane County air travelers currently making the drive to Portland. Reaching that scale, Stephens has noted, would require approximately $500 million in total renovation and expansion investment. The $6.24 million is the foundation that comes first.