Historic Edmonton hangar goes down in flames

BUILT IN 1942

An inferno has razed Edmonton's historic municipal airport Hangar 11, a Second World War structure built in 1942 on the old City Centre Airport land that is now the Blatchford housing development.

Crowds gathered to witness the fireball of flames in windy conditions just before 7 p.m. Monday, a plume of black smoke visible across the city.

Edmonton Fire Rescue Services said Tuesday the first call about the fire came in at 6:54 p.m., with crews arriving at 7 p.m. By 7:28 p.m., the mammoth blaze was deemed a “two alarm” fire, with 11 total crews on scene at that time as heavy smoke and flames shot from the hangar. Eventually, the hangar collapsed. No injuries were reported.

By 8 p.m., LRT service was temporarily cancelled to the new NAIT/Blatchford Market station, but resumed a few hours later.

As of 6 a.m. Tuesday, there were still two fire crews on scene. Its cause remains under investigation.

The Municipal Historic Resource on Blatchford's eastern portion was one of the last of its kind in Western Canada. It was to be restored and renovated, transformed into a mixed-use environment to include restaurant, retail and residential space.

A developer was behind the Hangar 11 project, not the City of Edmonton, which is Blatchford's developer.

The city in 2021 had considered keeping ownership of the building and leasing the space, but deemed it too expensive. Costs for a full rehabilitation up to leasing standards at that time were estimated at between $55 million and $83 million.

When asked by reporters at city hall Tuesday, Ward Dene Coun. Aaron Paquette called the fire a “tragedy” and added the city was allocating $500,000 annually, up to $5 million, to the hangar as a historic resource.

“Because it is no longer there, tragically, it does free up some of those dollars,” said Paquette. “The allocation was specifically because it was a historic resource, not to augment a private operation. And so now that that historic resource is gone, it's hard to justify that allocation of dollars — it's really, really sad.”

Back in 2018, the city said it could be too costly to save the building, but after strong support from heritage advocates, council decided to hold off on a decision around demolition and explore other ideas.

Details from Edmonton Fire Rescue Services (EFRS) on the scale and cause of the fire are expected in the coming days.