The Lincoln Airport took a big first step Thursday toward a major remodel of its passenger terminal.

The Airport Authority approved signing a design contract for as much as $1.8 million with Alliiance, a Minneapolis-based architectural firm that specializes in airport work.

Details of the contract are still being worked out, so an exact cost wasn't finalized as of Thursday, but airport officials said they expect to sign a deal in the next few weeks.

The airport hired Alliiance earlier this year, paying the firm $105,000 to come up with options to make changes to the 45-year-old terminal building.

Airport Executive Director David Haring said the original aim was to make some quick fixes and then work toward a bigger, longer-term project.

But the more options that were looked at, the more it became apparent that "the only fix was a long-term fix," Haring said.

So the airport is going forward with planning and designing what is likely to be a $20 million project that would add about 35,000 square feet to the existing 58,000-square-foot building.

Though many details of the design still have to be worked out, some concepts are pretty concrete at this point.

One of those is a consolidated security checkpoint. The airport has two checkpoints and Transportation Safety Administration staffing levels make it difficult to operate them efficiently, especially at busy times of the day.

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