Published April 2004

Boeing OKs lease
for NFIC tour center

By John Wolcott
SCBJ Editor

Construction of the National Flight Interpretive Center aviation museum at Paine Field moved a step closer to reality in March when the Boeing Co. signed a 25-year lease agreement with Snohomish County to build and operate an expanded tour center for its Everett 747-767-777-7E7 assembly plant.

Work on the $21.7-million, 63,650-square-foot museum is expected to begin by early summer, with the first visitors going through the doors by June 2005.

The public-private partnership project involves Snohomish County government, Boeing and the Museum of Flight in Seattle, which is expected to sign its agreement to operate the Paine Field museum within a few weeks.

The Boeing Tour Center’s move to larger facilities on the museum site, across Highway 526 from the Boeing production plant, has been considered crucial to the success of the project. Already ranked as the most popular tourism attraction in the county, Boeing’s new facility is expected to attract 230,000 visitors a year in conjunction with the attraction of the air museum, an increase from today’s volume of more than 100,000.

Visitors are expected to spend an additional $3.5 million a year in the county after the facility opens on a site west of the Paine Field runway and within sight of the Boeing assembly plant and rows of newly painted airliners waiting for delivery.

Landing the tour center, and its steady stream of visitors, was crucial to the new museum’s success, said Bill Lewallen, deputy director of the airfield. “Without it, there’s no way to make it pencil.”

The new tour center will include a 200-seat theater and a Boeing gift shop, taking up 11,400 square feet in the museum. The NFIC will feature a cafe, meeting rooms and an aviation gift shop, along with displays of yet-unannounced aircraft and aviation memorabilia. Outside the museum, two exhibits are planned, a Boeing 727 and one of Boeing’s B-52 bombers.

Later this year, construction is expected to start on a 100-room Hilton Garden Inn next to the museum. The full-service hotel would open nearly a month before the air museum is finished. The lodging facility would include a restaurant, lounge, indoor pool and high-speed Internet access in all rooms, including eight executive suites.

“This is an attempt to capture the international aerospace clients of Boeing who come to accept delivery of new jets,” Lewallen said, noting that market studies have shown that most of those visitors stay in downtown Seattle lodging even though they are at the Boeing plant during the day. The planned hotel also expects to attract tourists and other visiting business travelers.

Among the other attractions for visitors to the NFIC will be tours of the Museum of Flight Restoration Center at Paine Field, and close views of flying activity.

Barry Smith, the Museum of Flight’s executive director at Paine Field, said schools will also be a big part of the NFIC’s success. The museum’s aviation-and-history educational programs at its Boeing Field facility are already at capacity, serving 80,000 students a year. A presence in Snohomish County will provide more opportunity for students locally and in Skagit and Whatcom counties.

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