Federal government commits $800,000 to KF Aerospace

KELOWNA — On Mar. 30, Harjit Sajjan, Minister of National Defence, and on behalf of Seamus O’Regan Jr., Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, announced an $800,000 investment to KF Aerospace, to build a multi-use airport hangar that will showcase applications of wood in its construction.

Located at the Kelowna International Airport, the two-storey multi-use structure will be the first of its kind in Canada, using floor and tall wall wood-based systems to accommodate the large spacing between columns — a typical design element for a hangar but not yet done using this building system. Once built, the hangar will house an aviation museum and a conference centre. The total carbon benefits realized from the use of mass timber for this construction are an estimated 1,753 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Funding for the project is provided through Natural Resources Canada’s Green Construction through Wood Program, which promotes the use of wood in non-traditional construction projects such as low-rise non-residential buildings, tall wood buildings and bridges.

Projects like this hope to help Canada achieve its 2030 climate change goals by finding effective ways of building sustainably using Canadian wood products and lowering emissions.

“Wood is being used more and more in building bigger and taller buildings, and we’re leading the world at it. Creating new markets for Canadian timber supports our forestry workers, creates jobs and gets us to net zero.” said Seamus O’Regan Jr., Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources.