On a chilly December night last week, Martha’s Vineyard Airport director Geoff Freeman marched through the security screening line to get to the airport’s departure area for passengers awaiting flights. In the summer, dozens and dozens of people will huddle under a tent positioned next to the tarmac, but in the winter the tent is gone as the number of flights dwindle down to a handful a day.

If Mr. Freeman has his way, the tent will soon be gone for good.

Last week, the airport unveiled some of the first conceptual designs for a major airport terminal renovation, which would bring a permanent structure for departures, while also giving the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) more room to screen passengers.

The proposed 15,000 square foot expansion work would be some of the biggest changes at the airport in 25 years, and is expected to come before federal, state and Island governing bodies in the coming year.

“We’re going to be going deeper into a design over the coming weeks, and that is where we’ll really define what can work,” Mr. Freeman said during an open house at the airport last week.

Schematic of proposed new design.

Schematic of proposed new design.

The 9,800-square foot terminal straddles the West Tisbury and Edgartown town lines and was built in 1998, prior to when the U.S. security protocols were overhauled in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Most of the flights out of the airport in the summer require security screenings by TSA, and the agency is running out of room as its equipment grows ever larger. On a busy day, when as many as 14 commercial flights are going through the terminal, the ticket counter lines and the security lines can back up through the entire terminal, creating confusion.

“TSA now has a lot of equipment and space and needs,” said Mr. Freeman. “This area just does not accommodate a dual lane, multiple pieces of equipment.”

The layout of the terminal also can lead to people going through security multiple times, creating even more headaches for TSA. If passenger flights are delayed, or there is inclement weather, passengers often leave the current outdoor departure area for refuge in the terminal. That forces them to go back through security a second time, resulting in longer wait times. Under the new plan, the security queue would move toward where the baggage claim area is set up now, creating more space for screeners. After going through security, the passengers would enter the new departure holding area.

Though ridership has risen in recent years, Mr. Freeman emphasized that the terminal expansion is to better accommodate the current traffic of about 60,000 passengers annually, not to lure in more airlines.

“We don’t attract business here,” he said. “Some airports, large airports, small airports, go to these conventions where they solicit business...We don’t go out and advertise for business.”

Matthew O’Brien, the airport’s project manager with the firm McFarland Johnson, said the ongoing pilot shortage nationwide has prompted airlines to try to move the same number of passengers without increasing the number of flights.

From the airport’s perspective, that would result in an approximately equal number of passengers coming and going on an annual basis, but there would be higher peaks. When the terminal was built, the average aircraft carried about 46 people, Mr. O’Brien said. That has now climbed up to about 140 people.

The airport has been eyeing an overhaul for several years, and the process was jump-started this year after the airport landed a $15 million federal grant in October.

Mr. O’Brien estimated that the total renovation cost would be about $40 million, and take about two years for the construction, which would occur in phases so the airport could continue to operate. Though the airport is public, Island residents would not be tapped to help pay for the renovation, and the airport would cover the costs out of its own coffers, according to Mr. Freeman.

The planned terminal construction comes as the Federal Aviation Administration thinks about building a new and relocated air traffic control tower, and the airport continues to explore a change to the entrance road. The two-lane road, which also leads to several businesses, including a liquor store, seafood shop, gym, veterinary clinic and laundromat, can become clogged in the summer if one car is looking to make a left hand turn onto Edgartown-West Tisbury Road.

The airport is interested in adding a right hand turning lane at the exit and is working with the state, which holds an environmental easement through the airport property at the entrance road. There is no finish line in sight, but Mr. Freeman hopes that a new layout can be employed at some point to ease congestion.

“It’s a very long, tedious process to have an easement change,” Mr. Freeman said.

As the airport refines its plans for the terminal, it will have to go to a host of local, state and federal agencies for the change. Here on the Island, both the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and the town of West Tisbury, at the least, would be part of the review process.

Only a handful of members of the public attended the open house last week. One was Adam Turner, the director of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, getting a glimpse of what will be coming across his desk some time soon.

“We’ve had a great relationship, a cooperative relationship with the airport at the MVC over the years,” Mr. Turner said. “All I can say is we look forward to working with them to improve service.”