Multi-billion Newark Airport Terminal One nearly half complete (slideshow)

Port Authority officials finished the skeletal framework and foundation for the ambitious $2.7 billion Terminal One project at Newark Liberty International Airport – one of the main stretches of the project – and signed the last piece of steel that will go in the new terminal.

Once completed in 2022, the 1 million-square-foot terminal will hold 33 gates for airplanes and accommodate up to 17 million passengers a year, bringing Newark Airport’s total yearly capacity to over 60 million.

“It’s a major milestone because once the steel’s up, it’s probably halfway through the process,” Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-3rd District, told reporters prior to the Wednesday morning topping-off ceremony.

Officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns and operates the airport, envision that Terminal One will fully replace the 45-year-old Terminal A, which they say is outliving its usefulness.

“It’s not a well-oriented terminal,” Port Authority Director of Aviation Huntley Lawrence told reporters during a tour of the new terminal under construction. “It’s a facility that worked well in the ’70s and ’80s and in a pre 9/11 environment, but it has to be replaced.

But in the near future, Terminal A and Terminal One will be used at the same time. Terminal One will be opened for limited usage with 26 terminals in 2021, according to Port Authority Board Chair Kevin O’Toole.

The Port Authority’s board of commissioners are planning to vote tomorrow on the construction of a $2 billion air train both in Newark and LaGuardia Airports. That would replace Newark Airport’s aging monorail, now 25 years old, which connects Terminals A, B and C.

“It’s a system that served the airport well,” Lawrence said. “From a capacity standpoint, it can no longer continue to serve the airport.”

Meanwhile, Port Authority officials are planning to drop $35 million in seed funding for the planned Terminal Two, which would eventually replace Terminal B in Newark Airport, according to O’Toole.

“We are going to transform this region and that’s what we are doing right now,” he said Wednesday morning.