AUBURN – In the dim light of dusk, the expansive brick facades of the Bates Mill buildings were still visible across the Androscoggin River from the window in Tom Platz’s seventh-story office.

About two hours earlier, his real estate development company had finally sealed a deal that had been nine months in the making. The city of Lewiston would give his enterprise ownership of two more buildings. In return, he would pump millions of dollars into them, generating new tax dollars and new businesses for the city’s ailing downtown.

As in most of his local business ventures – and philanthropic gestures – Platz had done it all quietly, largely behind the scenes. Without fanfare or controversy.

But with purpose.

With the City Council’s OK, Platz’s Bates Mill LLC soon would control all but one of the historical buildings (and a boiler house) in the vast mill complex.

Platz, along with partners Jim, his brother, and Pasquale “Pat” Maiorino, a longtime family friend and lawyer, sees redevelopment of the former mill as the first step in returning the Twin Cities to its former glory as a thriving economic center.

When they’re done, Platz said they expect to fill the buildings with a mix of offices, wholesalers and retailers who could put as many as 6,000 workers on their payrolls, more than were employed at the mill during its heyday.

About 2,000 of those jobs are already here, housed in two of the three mill buildings Platz and his partners now own.

That investment should spawn spinoff businesses, he said.

“We’ve always felt that in revitalizing the mill, you’re really going to revitalize that whole area of the city.” he said. “It’s going to spread quite a ways, I think.”

The vision

The Bates Mill master plan that Platz was hired by the city to develop seven years ago features a convention center in the portion of the mill that once housed huge looms that made bedspreads for Bates of Maine. An artist’s rendering in the conference room of his office shows a modern glass curtain-wall stretching along the vast second floor of the building.

His vision includes a 90,000-square-foot trade show floor that he said likely would be the largest in New England. Consultants have projected visitors to such a center would circulate about $125 million in cash in the Twin Cities area over a year.

The center would spur growth of support industries in the city, such as hotels and restaurants.

“It’s a way of getting Auburn and Lewiston back in the limelight and thriving,” he said. “I think it’s the single biggest thing that could happen that could put us, economically, back in the driver’s seat.”

His vision extends beyond the city proper. The Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport ought to resume commercial air commuter service to serve the revitalized cities, he said.

“I think we could be a first place destination area” for people coming to Maine, he said.

Bates Mill LLC has already sunk $17 million into the mill buildings. It has paid the city $5 million and will get the next two buildings for nothing.

When they’re done, Platz said he and his partners will have invested a total of roughly $60 million.

Some critics of a contract that dates back more than 10 years giving him an exclusive first option say Platz got a sweetheart deal. Others characterize him as a savior who galloped to the city’s rescue at a time when recession still gripped the city. The buildings, taken for back taxes, had generated little interest from other developers. They might have languished as warehouses or been bulldozed.

To Harvard and back

Sporting a full blond beard, Platz combs his receding hair straight back. He looks like a middle-aged Beach Boy. His fashion tastes run to casual business. On this day he wore baggy khakis, a blue button-down Oxford shirt and tweed jacket.

A Harvard-trained architect, Platz, 52, devotes most of his time to his vocation at Platz Associates, a full service architectural firm of which he is president. Brother Jim, who is a year and a half older, works in the office as an engineer.

The two bothers overlapped for a couple of years at Harvard University as undergraduates, and even roomed together for a time. While Jim moved back to Maine to earn his master’s degree in engineering at the University of Maine, Tom stayed on at Harvard, studying architecture in graduate school.

Growing up in Auburn, Tom went to Edward Little High School where he pole vaulted for the track team and jumped for the ski team. Some of his teammates went on to the Olympics.

His father was a local lawyer who moved to the Twin Cities area from a Boston suburb in 1932. After college, both brothers returned to the area. Tom Platz said he thought it was a good place to raise a family.

“A lot of what makes this town good is still here,” he said.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com