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OTTUMWA, IOWA -- The old administration building out at the Ottumwa Regional Airport was once the epicenter of the Naval Air Station during WWII.

The building has been empty since about 1984 and has since fallen into disrepair – that is until the Friends of the Naval Air Station Ottumwa group was formed with the intent to try to preserve and restore the building and hopefully make it into a museum.

And construction is already underway.

“We have contracts to put a new roof on the building. We're getting estimates for some concrete work repair here in the front and to rebuild the front porch area and we are working on estimates to some repair work around the exterior building that needs to be done,” said Tom Francis, Ottumwa Regional Airport Supervisor.

After the exterior of the building is finished, Francis said they will be tackling the inside cleaning out the trash and debris that has been collected over the years.

“There's a lot of historic significance. There's a lot of aviators that got their first training here that went on to great fame. Richard Nixon was stationed here. He didn't pilot train here but he was stationed here during his tenure. Scott Carpenter was one of the original astronauts trained here and there's been several other notable people,” said Francis.

Francis estimated the total of the project to be around $500,000.