Plans to build a hotel within BWI Airport’s terminal are moving ahead again after being put on hold during the pandemic.
Building a 200-room hotel on top of the airport is one of Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport’s future capital projects, Ricky Smith, the airport’s CEO, said during a talk to the BWI Business Partnership last week. Smith also offered updates on other current and future projects at the Anne Arundel County airport, including plans to connect its C and D concourses, construct a new air traffic control center and build an airline lounge, which would be BWI’s first.
The potential in-terminal hotel is still in the pre-planning phase but Smith said the decision to revive the project came about because airport hotels have rebounded from the pandemic faster than expected. He added that the airport is currently looking at procurement and financing for the project and that a timeline was “more future than I want it to be.” BWI Airport will be looking at Orlando International Airport as an example since it has a 445-room hotel in its main terminal.
“Airports are always going to change,” Smith said about BWI’s future projects.
Plans to build a hotel above the airport first surfaced publicly in 2016, following a failed effort to attract private sector interest in constructing an on-site hotel near the airport’s hourly parking garage. The airport decided to re-examine the demand for a hotel in 2021, as the hospitality industry was hit hard during the Covid-19 pandemic.
