At least once a week, the Pacific Aviation Museum-Pearl Harbor on Ford Island gets a familiar complaint.

Executive Director Ken DeHoff said the concern has to do not with the museum, but the famous control tower that stands next to it.

"Let me just quote somebody. He said, 'You know, we paid for that building, and you guys aren't taking care of it. That's a waste of our taxpayer dollars,' " DeHoff said. "And I say to them, 'I don't own the lease, I don't own the building yet.' "

"Yet" is the key word, and therein lies hope for DeHoff. "We're absolutely hopeful of getting the control tower this year," he said.

That requires a lease with the tower's owner, the Navy.

Restoring the iconic red- and white-striped (actually now more of a faded tan and brown) control tower has been on the nonprofit aviation museum's radar since it opened in the shadow of the landmark on Dec. 7, 2006.

The museum restored Hangar 37 and is working on Hangar 79.

Navy appraisals for a control tower lease have been done. The museum had hoped to have a deal signed by the end of last year.

"It's just been a very long process," DeHoff said.

Naval Facilities Engineering Command officials here recently met with higher-ups in Washington over the transfer.

"I got a call from their representative who said the meeting went well," DeHoff said. "They came back with a couple of issues that they wanted us to address, and we should hear something back about that in the next couple of weeks."

There's a lot of legend concerning what was originally a water tank. The Navy said construction began in early 1941. But the air traffic control room in the crow's nest was built after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack.

By 1942 the complex was complete, down to the red and white striping.

The last time the 158-foot-tall riveted-steel tower got a paint job was for the 1970 film "Tora! Tora! Tora!" Catwalks are rusting and paint is peeling, but structurally, the tower is solid. "It's not going to fall down," DeHoff said.

Repairs will include stabilizing rusted metal, sandblasting and repainting, at a cost of more than $4 million. DeHoff said U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, is working on getting some federal funding for the effort.

A library is planned for the first floor of the complex, and museum administrative offices are planned for the second floor.

Meanwhile, the complaints continue.

"Within the last month, I had an architect pull up here. He came on the bus," DeHoff said. "He said, 'Well, at least close the damn windows so the rain stays out of it.' Yeah, good point. I can't." Not yet, anyway.