EVERETT – The Future of Flight Aviation Center &Boeing Tour is the new name of the aviation museum under construction at Paine Field.
Until this week, the $21.7 million facility was known as the National Flight Interpretive Center. But the Snohomish County Council renamed the facility on Thursday.
Howard S. Wright Construction began work in November on the 73,000-square-foot building, which is on the northwest side of the airport.
The Museum of Flight in Seattle will run the Future of Flight, which will incorporate the Boeing Co.’s popular tour center, a cafe and a theater. It’s projected to open in August.
“We’ve poured foundations and erected portions of walls already,” said Bill Lewallen, Paine Field’s deputy director and project manager for the museum. He added that the next major construction step, steel framing, should start in February.
National Flight Interpretive Center was chosen as a temporary name while officials gathered support and financing for the facility. The new name was carefully selected by the county and Boeing, Lewallen said.
Boeing contracted with a marketing company to research and develop possible names. A 13-member selection board formed by the airport then recommended its choices to the Snohomish County Council. The decision to approve Future of Flight was unanimous, Lewallen said.
“The name … speaks strongly to how we want Snohomish County to be perceived within the region and the world,” County Executive Aaron Reardon said in a statement.
Sandy Ward, executive director of the county tourism bureau and a participant in the naming process, also liked the final choice.
“It’s progressive – like the Boeing Co., like aviation needs to be, and like Snohomish County,” she said.
With the name selected, museum directors can now move ahead with marketing efforts, Ward said.
She’s also excited about the combination of the museum with Boeing’s new tour center. The existing Boeing Tour Center for the company’s nearby manufacturing plant is the county’s largest tourist attraction, even though it runs only on weekdays.
Proposed weekend and holiday hours for the museum and tour center are expected bring in even more tourists, up to 300,000 each year, according to county estimates.
“It’s going to be tremendous. We have missed a whole big part of the visitor business that can’t get here during the week,” Ward said.
Construction of a $7 million, 102-room Hilton Garden Inn next to the Future of Flight is scheduled to begin in the next two weeks. Beechwood Development LLC is in charge of that project.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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