A Monday inferno that 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 — is suspicious in nature, police said Tuesday.

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. By Tuesday afternoon, the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) said the fire might have been intentionally set.

“EPS is now investigating this fire as suspicious,” Carolin Maran with the EPS public information office said just before 2 p.m.

Edmonton Fire Rescue Services (EFRS) earlier Tuesday said the first call about the fire came in at 6:54 p.m. Monday, 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, with trains turning around at Kingsway/Royal Alex station. A few hours later, at 10:30 p.m, LRT service resumed to the NAIT/Blatchford Market station.

As of 10 a.m. Tuesday, there were still two fire crews on scene dousing hot spots on the charred building. Crews planned to take the rest of the building down with a backhoe later Tuesday.

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

Restoring and renovating Hangar 11

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 listed owner of the building is Hangar 11 Property Ltd. of which Tim Antoniuk is a director.

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.

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said it is “really sad” for the city to lose “such a phenomenal and historical place” to fire, adding if the developers can move forward to salvage the history of the hanger it would be great for the Blatchford area.

“I don’t know what their plans would be now,” said Sohi. “If they can turn it into something, that would be good.”

Ward pihêsiwin Coun. Tim Cartmell added the loss of Hangar 11 is not only heartbreaking for the city and the history of the building, but for the future plans developers had for the space.

“People were working on that project, they had a project in mind, they had a vision in mind and a dream in mind,” Cartmell said. “There were people that were going to be employed for the next couple of years turning that building into something else — they’ve lost their project. That has an economic impact to those contracting companies, to those construction companies and to those tradespeople.

“The tentacles of this loss ripple through our community in so many ways that are not immediately apparent — it’s just awful.”

NAIT main campus buildings closed

The neighbouring main campus buildings for the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) remained closed Tuesday due to poor air quality following the fire. Crews are working to assess the air quality in every building to ensure students can return to class safely, the post-secondary institution said in a Tuesday news release.

“Limiting access to buildings also reduces odour from further entering the buildings, as the HVAC system is currently shut down while air quality is being assessed. At this time, we are minimizing the opening and closing of doors to prevent odours and particles from further entering the buildings.”