For decades, local leaders vainly searched for a new location for San Diego’s international airport, which has but a single runway and is hemmed in by the bay and dense urban neighborhoods, with no room to grow.

When the quixotic quest finally ended in 2006 with the lopsided failure of a ballot measure to move the airfield and its terminals to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, the airport did the next best thing. It went into full-on redevelopment mode, beginning with a nearly $1 billion makeover of Terminal 2 that included 10 more gates.

A little more than a decade later, the airport’s redevelopment pivot will culminate this month with the first phase opening of a gleaming, light-filled new Terminal 1 that will eventually house 30 gates and eight airlines. By the time the final phase

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