They just opened a new terminal built on the site of the original terminal back in 2002. The original terminal was built in the early 1950's back before there were passenger jets. It had a rather spread out inefficient layout, and had to be retrofitted for security and baggage pick up. I remember back in the mid 1960's that it was possible to bypass the terminal and walk directly out to the gates where there was just a half height hurricane fence preventing access to the tarmac along the walkway from the terminal to the gates. Later that got completely enclosed with glass walls on both sides.
About ten years or so ago, the city had started renovating the existing terminal and found serious structural problems that would be expensive to fix. The city council got some proposals for building a new terminal that would be more modern but would cost a little more than fixing the existing terminal, but it would also last longer. Originally they planned to put the terminal in a new location between the runways, but decided to build it on the site of the orginal terminal when the costs of moving the entrance and utilities were estimated to be $6-10 million.
The new terminal is much more compact and requires much less walking from the check in counters to the gates. The Southwest gate used to be over 1,000 feet from the check in counter. Now it is the closest gate to the TSA "security" checkpoint. All the gates are located near each other on the second floor of the terminal, and they all have jetways leading to the planes. The previous terminal only had a jetway for Southwest, and it had a rather steep slope as it went from ground level up to the plane.
The lines to go through TSA screening are much shorter than at SAT, IAH, or DFW. My parents went on a trip to Europe last September, and they were able to go through security much more quickly than the other people in their group who started at IAH.
Here is the layout of the old terminal with temporary facilities.The layout of the new terminal.
