October 21, 2023

It’s the end of an era for Buttonville Airport as the facility will be closing on November 30, 2023 after 70 years. It began in 1953 as a grass airstrip and eventually became an official airport in 1962. The airport was built on farmland well north of the city on property that used to belong to John Button, the founder of Buttonville. The image below shows the airport in 1960 with the community of Buttonville to the south east. Highway 404 wouldn’t be built until the 1970s and presently runs along the west side of the airport. The first construction of the Highway began in 1975 with it opening from Highway 401 to Steeles Avenue in 1977. The part running past the airport was completed in 1978. 16th Avenue is seen running along the top side of the airport. At this time it was a dirt road but now it is a major thoroughfare.

The airport was purchased by Michael Sifton in 1963 to add to their land holdings in the surrounding area. At that time, there was a metal hanger and a grass landing strip. The Sifton Family opened a new company called Toronto Airways Ltd and started to make improvements to the property. They built a terminal and in 1967 they added an air traffic control tower on the north end of the property near 16th Avenue.

Over the years several more buildings have been added to the airport to support the tenants. Aside from charter companies, the airport also is home to Toronto Police Services and they fly their helicopter out of here. Seneca College has a flight training school as does Toronto Airways. York Regional Police and Canadian Traffic Network also call the airport home and make their flights from here.

There are between 160,000 and 170,000 aircraft movements each year out of the facility.

In 2006 Nav Canada built a new air traffic control tower on the south end of the property to replace the aging facility on the opposite end of the runways. They built it in a modular format so that it could be taken apart and moved elsewhere at some time in the future.

The Buttonville Flying club owns 70 aircraft out of the 300 that are stationed at the airport. Some claim that before Tom Cruise starred in Top Gun he took flying lessons here. Michael Sifton died in 1995 and since then there have been rumours that the airport will close. In 2009 the Greater Toronto Airport Authority cancelled a $1.5 million per year subsidy and the fate of the airport was effectively sealed. In October 2010 Armadale and Cadillac Fairview announced a residential and commercial redevelopment for the site.

The closure date for the airport has been set for November 30, 2023 after which the current tenants will have to be relocated to other airports around the area. One source estimated that of the current airplane movements at the airport up to 70,000 wouldn’t be accommodated at other local airports. The most recent plan for the airport has the lands being used for industrial purposes. Eleven one story industrial buildings are planned to be built over the coming years. The image below was taken from Urban Toronto and shows the redevelopment proposal.

It is unclear where the current tenants will relocate and many of them may cease operations because other local airports can’t absorb all the airplane movements that will be lost.

Google Maps Link: Buttonville Airport

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