LEWISTON – The city should be out of the mill development business today as developers Platz Associates and city officials close on the Bates Mill Enterprise Complex deal.

City officials and Platz negotiated the deal last year. City Administrator Jim Bennett said lawyers for both sides have been ironing out details since then. The final signing is scheduled for 9 a.m.

The agreement gives developer Tom Platz and his partners control of most of the remaining buildings in the Bates Mill complex. The city keeps buildings No. 5 and No. 9, according to the agreement.

“It’s just a matter of signing some paperwork and moving the money around,” Bennett said. “As of this afternoon, we should be done with the mill.”

The city took over ownership of the property in 1992 and has been renovating mill buildings and selling them to Platz and his business partners. They began negotiating an exit strategy for the city in October 2002, and councilors signed off on the plan in December 2003.

According to the deal, Platz Associates takes control of all but Mill No. 5 and the steam generation plant. Platz would not pay for those buildings. The city agrees to pay annual support, pay for some environmental cleanup and exterior renovations, and would need to provide parking for the project.

The deal cuts the city’s investment at the mill nearly in half, from an estimated $59.2 million over the next seven years to $27.5 million. It does so by limiting the number of parking spaces and the extent of environmental cleanup the city has to provide. The deal also gets the city off the hook for interior renovations at the remaining mill buildings and some $750,000 annually in operations support.

The contract requires Platz to invest a minimum of $5.3 million over the next three years.