Historic Sanford tower set to be razed

SANFORD – A historic World War II Navy tower at Sanford Regional Airport is slated for demolition this spring, marking the end of an era in aviation in Maine.

Its owner, Bill Kostis, said he has no choice but to tear down the tower in order to make room for a parking lot to serve what will be a $10 million building in which Oxford Aviation will work on corporate jets.

Kostis, whose father bought the distinct, three-story tower in 1970, said the costs of moving and refurbishing it are too high.

“Basically, there’s a few people that want it to stay, but it would have to be everyone pulling together to keep it, and there’s not enough people for that,” he said.

The tower is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the last building of its kind anywhere in the country. The military developed the Sanford airfield during World War II, building the tower and a mock aircraft carrier landing deck to train U.S. and British fighter pilots.

When the war was over, the military turned what had previously been an undeveloped grass landing strip over to the town.

Kostis’ family had hoped to renovate the tower as a museum or archive of World War II-era aviation material, but renovation costs were too high and those plans fell by the wayside.

Used in recent years as storage and workshop space for Kostis’ two-way radio communications business, the building has fallen on hard times. It’s missing a few windows and mostly gutted on the inside.

Kostis said his family has spent about $15,000 over the years just keeping the tower mostly weathertight – replacing about 600 windows broken by vandals, putting a temporary roof on and framing inside walls.

“Nobody has ever done anything to this building … I wasn’t sure if it was going to go up or come down,” Kostis said. “But it’s still a functional building.”

The tower still has a few Navy signs and a wood plaque with the building number on it, but Kostis is not sure if there is anything in the building worth salvaging.

Still, he said, it would be nice to save the tower for an obvious reason: “Hey, it’s the only one left in the country.”