A Florida airport just opened a one-airline terminal with 3 restaurants and a pet room
Sarasota Bradenton International Airport’s newest terminal is now open with three new restaurants and other convenient features for travelers.
The Florida Gulf Coast airport had a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new terminal Tuesday, Jan. 14, and the first flight launched from the expansion on Wednesday morning.
Named Concourse A, the more than 75,000-square-foot terminal sits to the right of the ticket counters on the ground floor and exclusively services Allegiant flights.
“We’ll have, by February, I think it’s 35 destinations from Allegiant,” airport CEO and President Rick Piccolo said. “And they will be our biggest carrier in January and February. They’ll have the most seats of anyone.”
New terminal opens after hurricane delays
The $110 million project faced delays in October after Hurricane Milton made landfall in Sarasota. But the terminal was recently completed and its first flight took off Jan 15.
Piccolo said it’s the biggest project since Concourse B was built on the airport’s second floor.
Concourse A adds three local restaurants to SRQ
Concourse A features three new places for SRQ airport travelers to eat and drink:
▪ Sarasota To Go offers grab-and-go sandwiches and Peet’s Coffee.
▪ Patrick’s 1481, a downtown Sarasota eatery known for burgers and American fare, has a sit-down restaurant in the terminal.
▪ Popular local seafood chain Anna Maria Oyster Bar rounds out the offerings with a restaurant and bar.
“The biggest thing is we wanted to get people that were local to be able to be at the airport and expose people to their products,” Piccolo said. “So that when they come here and they try it here, maybe they’ll try it out there as well.”
Terminal adds convenience for travelers with children, pets
The terminal has five gates with a remote sixth gate that can be used when needed, Piccolo said.
In addition to regular bathrooms, the terminal has an all-in-one bathroom with doors for a mother’s feeding room, an ADA-friendly restroom and a pet relief room.
The pet relief room has a strip of artificial turf with a drinking bowl at one end and a fire hydrant at the other.
It’s “what’s required in the modern times,” Piccolo said. “Pet facilities are required. A lot of those are required by federal law, but you can do it cheaper, you can do it expensive and nice. And we wanted to do it really nice.”
There’s another all-in-one bathroom area at the front of SRQ before entering the TSA checkpoint that precedes the boarding gates.
The gate area offers ample seating, including seats designed for people with disabilities, and plenty of charging areas for electronic devices.
Allegiant shows off Bradenton-Sarasota themed plane
This week, Allegiant unveiled an Airbus A-320 plane designed specifically with its partnership at SRQ in mind.
Visit Sarasota, a tourism marketing and visitor’s information center, adorns one side of the plane with two sea turtle images. On the other side, the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitor’s Bureau is highlighted with a manatee image.
“We really wanted to demonstrate the great partnership with the community here,” Allegiant Senior Vice President of Airport Affairs Michael Broderick said.
Allegiant is based in Las Vegas. The airline has 27 existing routes at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, and eight additional routes are set to start in February.
