Yesterday the members of the board for the National Corvette Museum agreed to reverse course on a plan that would have turned the sinkhole in the Skydome area of the museum into a visitor’s attraction, citing safety concerns and a huge cost involved in the creation and maintenance of the sinkhole attraction. Instead, the NCM board has decided to fill in the sinkhole. The Skydome area of the museum will be sealed off from visitors, who can watch the process through plexiglass windows. Workers will fill the hole with rock, then fill the space between the rocks with grout. They will then drive in steel casings into the rock to provide a stable foundation for the floor.

The sinkhole opened up on Feburary 12, 2014 and created a hole 60 feet long, 45 feet wide and 30 feet deep, which swallowed up eight exceedingly rare Corvettes. During the meeting to determine the sinkhole’s fate, the fate of the cars were determined as well: GM will restore the 2009 “Blue Devil” ZR1 and the 1992 1 Millionth Corvette, while financially assisting with the private restoration of the black/red 1962 Corvette. The remainder of the cars (the 1992 40th Anniversary, the 1984 PPG Pace Car, the 2009 1.5 Millionth, the 1993 ZR-1 Spyder and the 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06) have been determined to be financially unfeasible to repair and instead will be displayed in their as-found condition.

According to museum director Wendell Strode, “We really wanted to preserve a portion of the hole so that guests for years to come could see a little bit of what it was like, but after receiving more detailed pricing, the cost outweighs the benefit.”

(Source: Bruce Schreiner/AP)