LEWISTON – Hotel developers could break ground next spring on an upscale development just off Main Street, city officials said Wednesday.

City councilors voted Tuesday night to approve a $1 million lease-purchase deal with Winston Hotels Inc. for the 1.16-acre paved parking lot on Mill Street, overlooking Veterans Park and the Great Falls.

“That is a very underutilized site right now,” said Lincoln Jeffers, assistant to the city administrator. “It’s used mainly for staging bands and festivals on occasion. But the vast majority of the time, there is nothing there. A parking lot is not the highest and best use for that site.”

The decision came after an executive session at the end of Tuesday’s regular council meeting.

The hotel will become the first phase of the Island Point redevelopment project announced in 2005. Developer Travis Soule plans to redevelop Cowan Mill, immediately north of the planned hotel, for condominiums and a restaurant.

The city plans to tear down the nearby and long-empty Libbey Mill this fall. Soule and partners had initially planned to develop it as a hotel once the condominiums at Cowan Mill were completed.

“But this changes the order of things,” Jeffers said. “Now, the hotel will be the first phase, followed by the Cowan Mill development.”

Winston Hotels is a Raleigh, N.C.-based real estate trust that owns and develops upscale hotels. The trust operates 53 hotels in 18 states; the nearest are in Shelton and Windsor, Conn. Most are franchises of the Hilton, Marriott, Choice or Intercontinental hotel chains.

Jeffers said Winston Hotels Inc. will do environmental assessments, soil tests and design work during the next 90 days. The company should also begin working on franchise agreements for hotel chains.

“We expect to have this all worked out this year, and the goal is to break ground next spring or summer,” Jeffers said.