Sterling Airport's 94.5-acre property at 121 Greenland Road has sold for $3.14 million to Acceptable Methods LLC, a limited liability company owned by Cambridge resident Richard C. Stokes. The buyer is no stranger to the runway: Stokes is a member of the Greater Boston Soaring Club, the gliding organization that calls the airfield home.
According to the Worcester Registry of Deeds, as reported by MassLive, the Ciborowski family sold the Greenland Road property for $3.14 million. The sale caps years of uncertainty over the future of a site that has quietly anchored small-plane aviation, gliding and one of the region's longest-running agricultural fairs in Central Massachusetts.
Stokes did not respond to MassLive's request for comment on his plans for the property, the outlet reported. But according to the Worcester Business Journal, he said the airport will continue to operate while he weighs the site's long-term future. The Journal's account identifies the seller differently, naming Fields at Greenmeadow LLC, managed by Gail Ferreira of Westford, as the party that sold the airport — a detail that conflicts with the Registry of Deeds attribution reported by MassLive.
A Longtime Home for Gliders and Tailwheel Pilots
The airport has been active since 1948, according to Federal Aviation Administration records cited by the Worcester Business Journal. Today it remains home to the Greater Boston Soaring Club, which the outlet describes as a nonprofit with more than 100 gliding enthusiasts who share a passion for silent flight. MassLive's report echoes that description of the club's membership as aviation lovers drawn together by gliding specifically.
The airfield also hosts Urban Aviation Services, a flight school that, per its own website, has specialized in tailwheel instruction, transition training and aircraft rentals since 1976. Between the soaring club and the flight school, Sterling Airport has functioned for decades as a working hub for pilots well beyond the handful of weekends each year when the property draws its biggest crowds.
The Sterling Fair's Uncertain Perch
Those crowds come for the Sterling Fair, the three-day agricultural and educational event that the airport property has hosted annually, complete with livestock exhibits and a LEGO contest. The fair has called the airfield home since 1999, when swelling attendance forced organizers to find a bigger venue, according to the Telegram & Gazette.
That arrangement has weathered real estate turbulence before. Back in 2007, the Telegram & Gazette reported that the future of the fairgrounds remained uncertain even as organizers secured the site for that year's event, which at the time covered roughly 60 acres owned by Henry Ciborowski. More recently, a real estate firm told the Telegram & Gazette that the property was under contract for $4.5 million in August 2025 — a figure notably higher than the $3.14 million closing price now on record, though the evidence does not establish whether that earlier contract was superseded or involved a separate deal.
Development pressure has also loomed over the fairgrounds. A conceptual plan examined by the Telegram & Gazette proposed three 150,000-square-foot buildings alongside 390 parking spaces, 92 loading docks and 100 storage trailers, though the town had not approved those plans and they remained subject to further zoning review. Fair organizers told the paper last year that they had already begun working on the 2026 event even as the site's future stayed unresolved.
Whether the Sterling Fair will continue at the airport following this latest sale remains an open question that hasn't been answered on the record. For now, the most concrete word on the property's direction comes from Stokes himself, who indicated through the Worcester Business Journal that flight operations will keep running while he sorts out what comes next for the land his own soaring club calls home.
