Aviation history will touch down at the Villeneuve Airport next year as a new $10 million museum comes to town.
The Alberta Aviation Museum Association announced Saturday that it would build a new air museum on a five-hectare site at the Villeneuve Airport next year. The $10 million Alberta Flying Heritage Museum will feature working airplanes and delve into the history of aviation in northern Alberta.
The association decided to create a new museum after it learned the Edmonton City Centre Airport was set to close, said executive director Tom Hinderks. That airport is also home to the association's current museum. "I guess you could say it's bittersweet," he said of the decision.
The association had to figure out what to do with the 17 aircraft stationed at the City Centre museum. "It was either move or dispose of them," Hinderks said. Not wanting to lose the historic artifacts, the group worked with the Edmonton airports to create a new home for the planes at Villeneuve.
"This museum is completely separate," Hinderks said, with a different board and mandate. While the City Centre museum would focus on Edmonton's history with an emphasis on exhibits and research, the Villeneuve airport would be a "living" museum with working planes focused on northern Alberta.
Fifteen of the City Centre museum's aircraft have been disassembled and are ready for shipment to the new site, Hinderks said, as has a 26,000 square foot hangar from the City Centre airport in which to house them. Crews plan to fly the Spirit of Edmonton biplane over to the new site later.
Still up in the air is the fate of the museum's Boeing 737, Hinderks said. They need federal permission to fly it to Villeneuve as it's too expensive to dismantle, and if they don't get it by Nov. 30 (which is when City Centre closes), they'll have to scrap the plane. "It's a million-and-a-half dollar asset we don't want to lose."
Big potential
The new museum will play host to all the demonstrations and fly-ins the old one did, Hinderks said, as well as the aircraft restoration program. It may eventually have an annual air-show.
Hinderks was pumped as he spoke about the stories they could tell at this new location. "Cooking Lake was one of the most historic airfields (in Alberta) as a float-plane base," he said, as was St. Albert airport for water bombers, but there hasn't been space to talk about them at City Centre. With the Villeneuve museum, they now have that space.
The new museum could draw up to 50,000 visitors a year to the region, said Sturgeon County Coun. Wayne Bokenfohr (which is the number of people who visit the current museum), some of whom may choose to settle in the county. "It can't really be anything but good to bring people to your county."
And most of those visitors will pass through St. Albert to get there, said Lynda Moffat, president of the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce and chair of the Villeneuve Airport Regional Task Force. "It's incredibly good for the economy to have a museum so close to St. Albert."
This is a world-class aviation museum that will boost the vibrancy of Villeneuve as an aviation centre, Moffat said. "It's something we can add to our list of things to be proud of."
Fundraising for the new museum has already begun, Hinderks said, with initial construction set to start next spring. The museum itself should open next summer.
Visit AlbertaAviationMuseum.com for details.
