By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Final plans for a Great Falls Plaza redevelopment project are still two weeks from being made public.

Site plan drawings for developer Tom Platz’s five Auburn office buildings should be filed with the city Planning Department by Oct. 7, just in time to get the project scheduled for a November hearing with the Planning Board.

The filing should include a site plan for four buildings and a parking garage, according to Steve Myers, development coordinator for Platz Associates. Platz would start with work on one building, north and west of the Auburn Esplanade. Bangor Savings Bank has already committed to take the first 5,000 square feet of the new building, moving in 50 employees as soon as it opens. The branch is supposed to include an ATM and drive-up service on the first floor of the multistory building.

The plan would also show how a planned $5 million, four-level garage with about 80 spaces per level will fit in.

The complexity of the project has made it tough to design, Myers said. Developers originally hoped to have the first office building finished this month.

“But we’ve essentially had to design for five complete buildings up front, even thought we won’t build all of them right away,” Myers said. Plans call for building the parking garage and one office building first and the rest years down the road.

“We can’t just start building something until we know how it’s going to affect all of the other buildings,” Myers said. “We have to think about elevations and traffic flow. All that has held up the design process.”

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