The Penobscot Indian Nation wants the federal government to hand over one of the largest buildings at Brunswick Naval Air Station so it can open a business repairing airplanes.
Leaders in Brunswick received confirmation Thursday that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is backing the tribe’s plan.
On behalf of the Maine tribe, the bureau sent a letter of intent to B.J. Penn, the Navy’s assistant secretary for installations and environment.
“It’s the first step towards capturing the property,” said Mathew Eddy, Brunswick’s economic development director and the interim head of the base’s local development authority.
The tribe wants the Navy building known simply as Hangar 5, a hulking brown structure that sits along the south end of the base’s side-by-side runways. The hangar is more than 800-feet long with seven bays, each large enough to park a P-3 Orion inside.
The building also has office space for 700 people.
The tribe hopes to team up with an existing aircraft repair company to occupy the building, said Tim Love, a former tribal governor who is working on the project.
Once operating, the company’s Native American ties would make it eligible for no-bid negotiated contracts with the federal government. Jobs might include repairing Army or Navy planes, Love said.
Such plans are a long way off, though.
The local development authority is currently seeking bids from firms to look at whether a civilian airport is even feasible at the base.
It will likely be a year before that question is settled. Then, the authority must decide the next step.
The Navy is expected to move out in three to five years.
However, several groups have already expressed interest in the base. The Air Force Reserve and the Maine National Guard have both filed letters of intent earmarking portions of the Brunswick complex.
And two other Maine Indian tribes, the Passamaquoddy and the Micmac, have suggested interest in the whole base, all 3,220 acres. The Bureau of Indian Affairs nixed those proposals, though.
If the Penobscot plan seems valid, the town and the local development authority will listen, Eddy said.
“We’re trying to reuse the base in a way that helps the most people,” Eddy said. “We’re going to have a lot of power to guide the process.”
For now, the tribe needs to write a detailed plan for the hangar and a few smaller nearby buildings, which are also part of the request.
“We’ll have it in no later than March 13,” Love said.
Part of the documentation must include a budget, one that may or may not include the cost of the hangar.
“We’re going to ask for a waiver: a no-cost transfer,” Love said.
If the waiver does not pass, the project would likely still work, though it won’t make as much money for the tribe.
“For us, the project is not so much about jobs as it is revenue,” Love said. “We already get enough federal handouts. We’d rather be a player.”
Love, the tribal representative to the Governor’s Task Force for the base, will soon get his first glimpse of the hangar.
The task force plans to tour the base on Tuesday.
Comments are no longer available on this story