AUBURN – Housing officials hope $2 million in federal tax credits will help transform an empty New Auburn bottling plant into an apartment complex.

Plans call for turning the Vincent Bottling Company building at 80 Mill St. into a 17-unit apartment building for the elderly and disabled. Work could begin next fall, according to Auburn Housing Authority Executive Director Richard Whiting.

“We’d love to get going on it sooner than that, but there is a lot of paperwork and legal work to finish up if we get the help we need,” he said.

Applications for a share of federal tax credits earmarked for Maine affordable housing closes today, and Whiting said he has high hopes for the Vincent building project.

“It is a very competitive process, but it’s a good project,” he said. “It’s a solid, well-built structure in an area of the city that needs occupants.”

The project would rely on the tax credits. The housing authority and the nine-member Auburn Housing Development Corporation would sell the credits to a private investor. The proceeds, plus $300,000 in federal HOME revenues, would pay for the project.

The plan has already been approved by the Auburn Planning Commission. There is no investor yet, however.

“We’ve set it up as an empty vessel at this point,” Whiting said. “Assuming we are funded, we’d go seek investors and move forward.”

The Maine State Housing Authority should announce the tax credit recipients in February. The Auburn Housing Authority will take the summer to line up investors and design the work. The project would open in 2008, he said.

It calls for 17 one- and two-bedroom units, including four handicap-accessible units. Renovations would include building a new elevator for the three-story building.

“It was built as bottling plant in 1927, so the structure is rock solid,” Whiting said. “It’s pretty rugged, which is one of the things that attracted us to it. Some old buildings, you just give them to wrecking ball. But not this one.”

The location works as well, he said. The building is at the center of New Auburn, on the corner of Mill and South Main streets.

“It would be bringing in people who could support local business,” he said. “There’s already some of that in New Auburn, but there is certainly room for more and this is a way to encourage that.”