LEWISTON – Councilors will look into southern gateway parking concerns at a special workshop meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Crews are set to begin planting trees, repaving sidewalks and improving crosswalks along Lisbon and Canal streets this summer. Those changes would reduce on-street parking spots, however, so councilors are scheduled to discuss alternatives.

At its regular meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, the council is scheduled to vote on a plan to buy Lincoln Street Radiator to make way for a parking lot. The business would be relocated to 1522 Lisbon St., where the city would buy the lot for owner Richard Libby and put up a new building at the corner of Lisbon and Drew streets.

In all, the city would pay $540,000 to take control of the southern gateway lot and move Libby into the new lot.

“The city is right where we should be,” as far as redeveloping the downtown is concerned, said Assistant City Administrator Greg Mitchell.

“Now that work is under way, I think people are getting a better idea of what is planned for that area,” he said. “We’re taking an industrial area that has been allowed to fail and turning it into a class area.”

The city signed a deal with Oxford Networks last summer to bring the company to Lisbon Street at the site of the former Good Shepherd Food-Bank warehouse. Since then, both Andover College and VIP Auto Discount Center announced plans to redevelop old Lisbon Street lots.

According to the agreement with Oxford Networks, the city would clean up the streets, making them more pedestrian friendly. Trees would be added, fences would be replaced by wrought iron and plain street lights by warmer, more ornamental lights.

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