HAHS letter to City of Houston & THC
Today, the museum board of directors sent a formal letter to all parties involved with the City of Houston and Texas Historical Commission outlining the current status.
At this moment, HAHS is in default of the lease, and must vacate both the terminal building and the 1928 hangar by the end of June.
We are requesting two things:
Written temporary relief from the June 30 vacate date to allow more time for the city and THC to negotiate.
Written confirmation from THC that they will indeed proceed with taking over.
As a reminder, THC’s own Phase II Assessment, completed in September 2025, concluded that the 1940 Air Terminal Museum meets all eight criteria for inclusion in THC Historic Sites Program, and that THC staff formally recommended advancing to a Phase III assessment. That assessment would have addressed, among other things, the precise lease and partnership framework now so urgently needed. Phase III was never initiated. We are now living with the consequences of that delay.
The Board intends to deliver the premises empty on June 30, 2026. The 1940 Air Terminal building will remain. Its contents — eighty years of Houston aviation history — will not.
The HAHS Board does not issue this notice with any satisfaction. We have dedicated over twenty years to this mission. We believe deeply in the importance of the 1940 Air Terminal Museum and in its potential as a destination for education, heritage tourism, and civic pride. But we are a volunteer board operating a dissolved organization, and we have run out of runway. The time for studies, assessments, and deferred meetings has passed.
We urge both institutions to act — decisively, and immediately.