SFO’s new Harvey Milk Terminal 1 is the best airport experience in the Bay Area – SF Gate

That, coupled with the perpetual stress of the pandemic — I was at the Transportation Security Administration screening area when seven Bay Area counties once again issued a mask mandate — should not make for a particularly soothing experience. 

And yet, here I am, seated at Gate B18 on a Monday afternoon, people-watching and at peace. As I nurse a creamy mango boba drink from the Filipino fast-casual restaurant Goldilocks, it almost feels like I’m at a park watching slackliners and picnickers, except here I’m watching travelers stroll to baggage claim. (More on the food — local, delicious and sometimes shockingly cheap — in a future story.)

Maybe it was because I wasn’t rushing to my gate with a barely zipped suitcase in tow (I had purchased a $50 one-way ticket to Vegas that I had no intention of taking just to hang out at Harvey Milk all day in the name of journalism), but I felt at ease at an airport for the first time in years.

Relaxed? At an airport?

Harvey Milk Terminal 1 is, dare I say it, peaceful — the least distressed I’ve been in a Bay Area airport during quarantine (or bear with me) ever. It’s certainly one of the few nonstressful experiences I’ve had at an airport as an adult.

Many of the decisions that contribute to the terminal’s chill factor are intentional.

The new $2.4 billion domestic terminal, which is named after the legendary gay rights activist (and is the first in the world to honor an LGBTQ leader), is being opened in phases. The most significant launch in the yearslong process took place in May, while the rest is set to open in 2024, nearly eight years after SFO broke ground on redevelopment.

The Milk terminal is a “quiet terminal,” which, by SFO rules, means a kibosh on flight announcements blaring for everyone to hear (except at their respective gates). 

Another key change to the airport experience that feels like a legitimate game-changer: the aforementioned security screening area.  

In most airports, after removing your shoes and sending your luggage through the scanner, the unloading area where your things are deposited is usually just a few feet long. At Harvey Milk, it is extended to let at least three or four people’s stuff linger on the belt while each retrieves their respective belongings and gets their bearings.

As someone who has, more often than not, rushed to put my shoes back on and flee the TSA check-in area, it’s remarkable that such a simple design change can fundamentally alter how I feel about the most stressful part of the airport experience.

So much space for activities

The terminal has a trendy, mid-century feel, with modernist chandeliers in the gate area, marbled and curved tables, mirrors and play spaces and a lot of faux-nature. Walking Harvey Milk’s quiet corridor feels like an idle stroll through an Ikea at closing time, or an Apple Store in the sky. In the best way.

But the key design choice that sets the terminal apart is space.

So many airport terminals (ahem, Oakland; double-ahem, other SFO terminals) just feel so tightly packed, with minimal room to walk and restaurants placed willy-nilly next to each other. They’re like a preview of what the next six hours of your cross-country flight will look like —  people and objects crushed into a proverbial tin of sardines.

Harvey Milk isn’t that. It is open and bright, as if they took the edict to socially distance and made that the entire ethos for how the terminal should feel. (Despite the fact that the terminal was in the works for years before the pandemic hit.)

There’s so much floor space to leisurely explore that even on a Monday afternoon, with a slew of flights about to depart, I found an area that was nearly empty — something I’d never seen outside of spending a night at an airport.

And it’s not just floor space.

The ceilings reach all the way to high heaven, with massive windows and printed art on the walls that’s larger than life. (Right now, it’s photos of Harvey Milk and cute maneki-neko cat statues.) It’s great for making sure that noise — and ostensibly air — is as distributed as possible.

Workers seem to like it, too, especially in comparison with other terminals.

“They have areas away from everybody that you can sit down and just really relax,” said Jesus Trevino, the general manager at Bourbon Pub in the terminal. 

He’s worked at other parts of the airport over the past two decades, and he’s not kidding when he says Harvey Milk is “gorgeous.”

“If I go to Terminal 2, I almost get depressed,” Trevino joked. “If I go to Terminal 3, then I get really depressed.”

“You can really tell, like, just like how low the ceiling is in Terminal 3,” he said, in comparison with where Bourbon Pub is now.

But first, some downsides

To be sure, I wouldn’t just jaunt to an airport if I didn’t have to.

It’s still an airport during a pandemic, so the occasional message will blare reminding fliers to keep their mask on lest they get fined or kicked out. Occasionally, you’d overhear a snippy customer being mad about, like, the bread choices at a sandwich shop, or being curt to a bartender.

And one too many times, the terminal-wide speaker would blare with airport workers asking for people to come to their gates (including another person also named Joshua, which made me think I was about to miss a flight).

But man, when I found myself getting drowsy after a second airport drink (a Golden State Jamaica cider from Drake’s, in this case), I sincerely considered taking a quick nap in the remote area, far away from all the gates, just like Trevino suggested. 

I don’t think I’ll find myself at an airport all too often, especially now that the delta variant is altering our new normal once again. But as the worst part of travel goes, SFO’s Harvey Milk terminal makes this normally miserable experience unexpectedly pleasant.