PANORAMIC IMAGE taken of the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, from the top of the Navy’s abandoned control tower.
The authority overseeing redevelopment of the Brunswick Naval Air Station is still awaiting the conveyance of the Navy’s nearly-new air traffic control tower on the former base.
The Navy operated two control towers at the base. Neither remain operational as control towers today.
The older tower adjacent to the hangars is now home to Brunswick Executive Airport’s fixedbase operator FlightLevel Aviation, which opened in 2011 and serves as a concierge for visiting aircraft.
THE EXTERIOR of the Navy’s newer control tower at the former base, now abandoned. The redevelopment authority is in the midst of acquiring the facility.
Use of the second tower by the Navy was shortlived, however. In 2005, the Base Realignment and Closure commission recommended that the Brunswick Naval Air Station close.
Today, the tower is still owned by the Navy, which is in the process of conveying it to the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority.
The tower is cut off from most of the former base, accessed through a couple of roads that are gated off, including one that runs parallel to Bath Road.
A recent tour of the tower facilitated by MRRA found a building that, with the exception of missing electronics and overgrown grass, looks like it could have been in use yesterday.
On the lower levels are vacant offices and other spaces. A long walk up a darkened stairwell ends in the tower’s cab several stories up, where controllers would have directed air traffic taking off and landing on the nearby runway. The cab offers a view of nearly the entire base. On an overcast day, many of Brunswick’s features are obscured, though Bowdoin College’s highrise dormitory still stands out in stark relief.
A few phones still sit ready inside the cab, but most fixtures and electronics were taken when the Navy left.
In an interview Wednesday, MRRA Executive Director Steve Levesque said the authority was still awaiting to receive the final deed from the Navy, and that final paperwork would be received “any day now.”
Levesque said the facility was built for around $15 million.
MRRA is restricted as to what tenants could use the tower for.
“Right now, it would have to be an aeronautical-related use” under the terms of the public benefit conveyance, said Levesque, although there are provisions that would allow MRRA to opt out of aeronautical use, should the need arise.
Levesque said the facility’s best use would be for aerospace research and development for defense companies such as General Dynamics or Lockheed Martin, two companies that already have a presence in Maine.
“It’s a nice remote secure facility for some sort of operation,” Levesque said, with enough space to build an adjacent hangar.
Don’t count on the tower being used to direct air traffic again. Like most other airports in Maine, with the notable exceptions of Portland International Jetport and Bangor International Airport, there is not enough demand at Brunswick Executive Airport to warrant use of a control tower.
“There’s no demand for a control tower at Brunswick for the foreseeable future,” said Levesque.
The tower’s cab, with its elevated 360 degree view of the Brunswick area, could be used as an observation room or conference room, said Levesque.
MRRA won’t start marketing the building to businesses until it officially comes into the authority’s possession.
“We do have a marketing plan for it, and will be showcasing the building. But we’re not under any negotiations,” said Levesque.
The tower isn’t the only property on the former base that may soon be changing hands.
The former Building 87 may soon be in the hands of Brunswick developer George Schott.
Built by NATO in the mid- 1980s, the 32,000-square-foot structure served as a military secure data and communications center facility. Today, it’s home to Oxford Networks’ high-security data center.
The Lewiston-based company, acquired by Montrealbased Novacap earlier this year, has plans to expand its Brunswick Landing location.
Schott representative Bethany Niles-Prather declined to comment on the purchase, other than to confirm that Schott does not own the property, and efforts to reach an Oxford spokesperson for comment were unsuccessful.
According to notes from MRRA’s executive committee meeting of July 1, Schott was to have closed on the building within 30 days for $5.1 million.
Levesque said the building would be sold with the existing lease in space, which won’t expire for several years.
“I don’t think we’re going to see a change in tenancy,” Levesque said.
jswinconeck@timesrecord.com
THE NAVY OPERATED two control towers at the base. The older tower adjacent to the hangars is now home to Brunswick Executive Airport’s fixed-base operator FlightLevel Aviation. The Navy operated that tower until it was replaced in 2004 with the newer, larger tower on the opposite side of the airfield.
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