The nonprofit owner of the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville filed for bankruptcy, blocking a foreclosure auction that was scheduled to take place late last month and leaving in flux the ultimate fate of the space museum and neighboring Wings & Waves Waterpark.

The Michael King Smith Foundation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Jan. 26, court documents show. Lisa Anderson, trustee for the foundation, said in the filings that the foundation still owes more than $2.2 million to Portland-based Hoffman Construction Co.

The foundation and Delford Smith, the late patriarch of the Evergreen operation, already paid the company in excess of $150 million for "development and construction services related to the museum campus and its surroundings," Anderson said in the filing.

Anderson said the foundation had been negotiating to sell its assets to satisfy its debt with Hoffman but could not close the transactions before a Jan. 27 foreclosure sale involving the space museum and waterpark. Hoffman refused to postpone the foreclosure sale, which had already been rescheduled multiple times, beyond that date, Anderson said. The foreclosure sale does not involve the aviation museum.

"As a result...the foundation was forced to file this bankruptcy case," Anderson said in the filing. "The foundation intends to propose a plan that will pay its creditors in full and preserve assets in a way that will continue to support the museum."

Anderson estimated that the foundation owes a total of $9.2 million to secured creditors and less than $40,000 to unsecured creditors. The foundation estimated its assets between $100 million and $500 million.

The museum was the public face of Smith's for-profit aviation company, Evergreen International Aviation. That company provided aviation services to the U.S. government, among other clients. Its collapse in 2013 resulted in years of ongoing fallout and left questions about whether funds were improperly mixed between the nonprofit and for-profit operations.

The Internal Revenue Service examined the operations at the request of the Oregon Department of Justice in 2014. A lawyer for the museum said in December of that year that "the IRS is happy."

Read more about the Evergreen fallout:

California wine giant buys former Evergreen buildings in McMinnville

Property at Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum faces foreclosure auction

-- Luke Hammill

lhammill@oregonian.com

503-294-4029

@lucashammill