LEWISTON – Plans to build a 96,700-square-foot warehouse on River Road will be unveiled to the Planning Board next week, marking yet another distribution facility for the area.

The plans, submitted by Gendron & Gendron, call for a two-phase project that would ultimately result in 92,300 square feet of warehouse space and a 4,400-square-foot office complex. More than 132 employee parking spaces are planned for the facility, as well as parking for six tractors and 28 trailers.

“My understanding is some of the jobs will be transferred from an existing facility and some will be new,” said David Hediger, chief planner for the city.

The $3 million project is only described as an express mail distribution center; the prospective tenant is not revealed in the application.

Neighbors will have a chance to view the plans at a meeting set for Tuesday, Sept. 4, at the public library. The project will come up for formal review with the Planning Board on Monday, Sept. 10.

“The zoning is all set for that use,” said Hediger. The 22-acre project site was once part of the Truchon Farm. There are no wetlands on the site, he added.

Plans call for an early 2008 opening for the first phase of the project, which includes a 74,500-square-foot distribution center and the office space. The north face of the building will have six dolly spaces and 15 loading docks. The entire facility will be ringed with a chain-link security fence topped with barbed wire.

The second phase of the project – another 17,500 square feet of warehouse space – should be concluded by 2012.

The site is at 380 River Road, adjacent to Estes Express. Estes opened its 15,000-square-foot facility this spring. Other warehouse and distribution centers that have come to the area recently include Bisson Transportation in Auburn Industrial Park, and Max Finkelstein and Fielding’s Oil, both in Lewiston’s Gendron Business Park. Safe Handling is in the midst of a 250,000-square-foot expansion at its distribution center in Auburn.

The granddaddy of them all, the Wal-Mart Distribution Center, opened its nearly 1-million-square-foot facility in the spring of 2005.