BREWER, Maine — If you have a spare $400,000 and you’ve always wanted to own your own airstrip, the Brewer Airport is on the market.
The 75-acre tract of land, featuring an office building, two airplane hangars, a storage structure and two runways that abut neighboring Pine Hill Golf Club and Brewer Armory in South Brewer, is being listed through the Quinn Agency of Bangor.
The airport, which originally was called Doan Field after being built in the late 1930s by George Doan and Gordon Doan, officially opened to the public in December 1944. The Doans maintained ownership until the early 1950s.
It presently is owned by Wesley Leighton Sr. and Sara Leighton, who reside in Punta Gorda, Fla. Wesley Leighton is a former United Airlines pilot who has owned the property since the mid 1970s.
“I think that’s been on the market now for about two years,” Tanya Pereira, Brewer’s deputy economic development director, said of the airport, adding that a private party negotiated to secure an option on the property a year or so ago, but the talks broke down and nothing substantial resulted.
Brewer’s City Assessing Department has listed an assessment of $147,300 on the property with an exemption of $38,700 for the airstrip.
The Leightons also own 61.8 acres in a separate lot on Elm Street, but that apparently is not part of the sale. That land includes almost 6 acres of wetlands.
The Brewer Airport is located at 56 Airport Road, toward the end of the street.
Any different use of the property “that’s appropriate and meets the rules, regulations and requirements of the city would be great, whether it’s industrial or a nice residential subdivision or a business park of its own,” said Pereira. “Also, if it remains an airport, it would still be an asset to the city.”
And even though it may not happen, she said, “a nice little corporate airport with some industrial lots and some condos would be even better.”
The listed asking price on the Quinn Agency website is $400,000.
The two runways measure 1,730-feet-by-30-feet, and the facility, which accommodates six aircraft, five single-engine planes and one ultralight aircraft, has been operated by the Brewer Airport Association, an organization composed of local flying enthusiasts, since 1995.
The runway was paved in the mid-1970s and field lights were maintained as late as the 1980s but no longer are. The runways reverted back from paved to turf surfaces in 1995.