EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Two El Paso brothers who are former educators purchased a Boeing 727 with hopes of turning it into a place where the community can gather.
John Lara said the 1961 Boeing 727 was abandoned for more than 20 years and was auctioned online with a price tag of $2,000.
“My wife was like, ‘Hey, when are you going to sleep?” Lara said. “I was just excited because I was like, ‘What if we get a plane for less than $10,000?’– that was a huge thing.”
Ismael Lara, John’s brother, said the plane was settled at the El Paso International Airport and they were given six months to pick it up.
“My biggest surprise was dismantling the inside of the airplane,” Ismael Lara said. “Little did we know that under the floorboards, wherever the baggage areas are, were four to five auxiliary fuel tanks.”
The plane’s current location on the East Side has attracted the attention of people living in the neighborhood.
“People are like, ‘Oh, great, this is just a metal scrapyard,’ but then little by little you start putting the plane back together, building these wings that are kind of like porches,” Ismael Lara said. “Then all of a sudden people are like, ‘Whoa, this actually had some thought behind it.'”
The two brothers have brainstormed about turning the plane into a short-term rental, an event space for the public or a restaurant.
“We’re both educators,” Ismael Lara said. “It’d be great to get some children, even adults, anybody really just excited about airplanes, aircraft, aerodynamics, force motion, things like that.”
There is no set date when the renovations will be completed and John Lara notes they’ve incurred a lot of costs due to the project, noting the plane’s transport, refurbishing and assembly have totaled around $500,000.
John said they anticipate licensing to cost anywhere between $100,000-$150,000.
“If we could open it, maybe a little bit to the public by November, but like to the extent that we want to open it, maybe not till possibly summer of next year,” John Lara said.
The two brothers hope kids can learn about STEM from this long-term project including “the engineering design and the planning behind it” along with other creative lessons.
“I do want them to learn that you can take anything that’s abandoned and forgotten — even that people discard and they think is ugly– and give it a new face, a new purpose,” Ismael Lara said.
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