Oxford Aviation is planning a major move from Maine’s Oxford County Regional Airport to Sanford Regional Airport, about 50 miles south, where it will open a 93,000-sq-ft building next spring.

The interior refurbishment center had been limited to aircraft the size of a Citation V or Beech King Air by the 4,601-foot runway at Oxford County. The 6,000-foot runway at Sanford Regional will allow the shop to accept aircraft as large as the Gulfstream G550 for refurbishment and exterior paint in the new $10 million facility.

Construction will begin this fall and, according to project development manager Martina Dabo, it will be ready for business next spring. A second phase of expansion, said Dabo, will permit the company to accommodate even larger aircraft. Oxford Aviation currently has about 60 employees. By 2008, that number is expected to have grown to about 200, and “eventually to as many as 350.”

The FBO facility Oxford Aviation operates at Oxford Regional will remain there. The company’s maintenance center at Eastern Slope Regional Airport in Freyburg will also remain in place.

Sanford Regional is perhaps best known as the airport where Air Force One lands when President George Bush visits the family home in nearby Kennebunkport.