MCMINNVILLE, ORE. — McMinnville Properties, which Bill Stoller of Stoller Wine Group owns, has purchased a 285-acre campus in McMinnville. The site houses Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, Wings & Waves Waterpark, The Lodge event and wedding venue, 220 acres of established vineyards and farmland, and a development site designed to accommodate a 99,000-square-foot hotel. The campus is located at 500 NE Captain Michael King Smith Way, 23 miles southwest of Portland and 30 minutes north of Salem.
Salt Lake City-based Falls Event Center sold the asset for $9.5 million. Adam Taylor and Buzz Ellis of JLL Capital Markets represented the seller in the deal.
The five-parcel property was been a tourist attraction since the aviation portion of the museum, which was not included in the sale, opened in 1991. Currently, the campus features original aviation museum plus the 120,000-square-foot Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, which was added in 2008; Wings & Waves Waterpark, an all-season, family-friendly park that opened in 2011; and The Lodge, a former chapel with a 150-person capacity and event space. The asset also includes established agricultural land featuring a mix of vines and feed grass that is harvested by a third party.
Additionally, the campus features a 6.96-acre development site that is entitled for a 96-key hotel with an indoor swimming pool, restaurant, fitness center and parking. Two additional buildings, including the museum structure that houses Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose airplane and a theater facility, were not included in the sale.
The new owners plan to implement upgrades to the water park and explore the potential of the hotel development site. Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum will maintain its lease of the exhibit buildings.