Fresno’s air traffic control tower needs modernization, not preservation | Opinion

The City of Fresno wants to demolish a 63-year-old air traffic control tower at Fresno Yosemite International Airport and replace it with a modern version. Yay!

The Fresno Historic Preservation Commission wants to save the 80-foot tower because it is a historical artifact that should join other important pieces of the city’s past like the William Saroyan residence, the Old St. Agnes Hospital and the Calwa Rocket. Yawn!

Should we care? Yes, but let’s first take a look at the quarrel between those who want to modernize a vital component of the airport and those who value the building’s history.

Project leaders say the existing tower is inefficient and fails to meet current safety standards, Fresno Bee reporter Edward Simon Cruz reported. A preliminary environmental assessment rules out saving the structure.

The tower is too short to allow air traffic controllers from seeing parts of the airfield. That can cause a lag in communicating with pilots.

Additional security is needed around the tower’s parking lot.

The current tower has a broken elevator and lead-based paint, which would result in high repair costs.

Federal Aviation Administration requirements determine the best location for an air traffic control tower. And the agency does not allow for two towers.

“The existing tower exists there for a reason: It was the best location in the ’60s,” Francisco Partida, the assistant director of aviation at the airport, said at a July 28 meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission. “The new tower will exist in the same area because it is the best location.”

Reconstruct the tower elsewhere?

In its July 28 meeting, the commission suggested the existing tower be preserved as an aviation museum using Measure P funds. Or, it could be dismantled and reconstructed somewhere else.

“To not be able to incorporate that into how the design is or how something looks — it kind of just pushes everything aside,” said Commission Chair James Sponsler. “We have this brand-new modern airport, but we’re not recognizing everything (about) where we came from.”

The old tower, designed by Chinese American architect Allen Lew, has been described as “modern American.”

Fresno officials expect a more thorough environmental assessment by late this year. Partida told The Bee information about Lew and the tower would be included in the airport terminal, the city’s website and be part of an upcoming Fresno County Historical Society exhibit on local Chinese history.

Partida’s proposal seems the most logical solution. For me, the existing tower doesn’t rise to the level of historical importance of the Old Fresno Water Tower (built in 1894), the Meux Home (1889) or the Tower Theatre (1939).

Best memory of the tower

I have flown in and out of the Fresno airport dozens of times, including my first-ever ride in an airplane in 1978 on my way for a job interview in Oakland. I’ve noticed the air traffic control tower more times golfing at nearby Airways Golf Club than while landing or taking off.

That’s not to say that I easily dismiss the tower. It remains ingrained in my memory for an early 1990s prank that fooled KSEE 24 television viewers into thinking a man had been pushed off or jumped from the top of the tower during a weather broadcast that featured the airport in the background.

“If you were watching our news earlier today, you may have seen something falling from the airport tower,” KSEE news anchor Bob Long reported in the evening newscast.

“You would have thought it was Orson Welles’ ‘War of the Worlds’ the way the KSEE keyboards lit up,” added anchor Stephanie Booroojian.

Reporter Faith Sidlow then investigated the prank. She found the dummy resting on a bench, but Sidlow failed to track down the man who pushed the dummy off the tower. An FFA administrator said his office was still trying to track down the dummy.

The prank lives on in Fresno lore. That is of historical significance.

This story was originally published September 5, 2025 at 11:00 AM.