What’s the importance of an old building? Just the soul of a community, that’s all.

The fate of Bates Mill No. 5, a Lewiston landmark, now hangs in the balance. In the next few months, the city will likely decide whether this 94-year-old structure is to be demolished, sold or renovated.

If Mill No. 5 were the White House, the conclusion would be foregone. The executive mansion has had many publicly funded makeovers in the past two centuries, including an almost complete reconstruction from 1948 to 1952.

Yet no one ever considered razing and replacing it with a glass-and-steel office tower, topped by a presidential penthouse suite. After all, its elegant faade is an icon of American political power.

Mill No. 5 is not on symbolic par with the White House, but it’s a potent symbol nonetheless: of U.S. economic power. It represents the junction of two great epochs of America’s Industrial Revolution – textiles and automobiles.

The first, starting in southern New England in 1790 and reaching Lewiston about 1850, involved large-scale production of cotton and wool cloth, achieved through harnessing water power and borrowing British technology for mechanized spinning and weaving.

The second began in 1914, when Henry Ford introduced Detroit’s first assembly line and turned out a new Model-T every 93 minutes, a seven-fold increase in manufacturing efficiency. This set the stage for automobile mass production, with output increasing from about 300,000 in 1913 to nearly three million by 1924.

Assembly lines required new kinds of industrial plants, which industrial architect Albert Kahn supplied by pioneering the use of steel-reinforced concrete as a building material.

This technique permitted wide roof spans to accommodate large, sequential manufacturing processes on one level. Popular with automakers in Detroit, Kahn was commissioned to build plants for Ford, Chrysler and Dodge.

Kahn designed a plant in Lewiston, completed in 1914, but intended for textiles instead of cars. That was Mill No. 5, the last and largest building in the Bates Manufacturing complex, located at Canal, Main and Lincoln Streets.

Mill No. 5 is markedly different than its predecessors in appearance and function.

Earlier Bates structures were classic red-brick mills, four to six stories high, centered around castle-like towers and held erect by timber framing, thick masonry walls and regularly spaced interior columns.

By contrast, Mill No. 5, covering four acres and 352,000 square feet of space on two levels, is low profile. With its long roof and saw-toothed skylights, it resembles an immense caterpillar. Inside, it is distinguished by high ceilings and vast spaces unbroken by columns or partitions.

Bates used Kahn’s building for jacquard weaving of its signature bedspreads, because the looms’ tall gantries and jacquard heads could fit under its ceilings. At its peak, Mill No. 5 housed as many as 300 looms operating at once.

The aesthetic, high-quality spreads made in Mill No. 5 gained Bates a worldwide reputation. By the 1970s, however, the company was struggling for survival. After numerous ownership changes and contractions, it closed in 2001, its residual operations having been confined mostly to Mill No. 5.

Since then, the city of Lewiston, owner of the real estate, has sought uses for Mill No. 5, with a convention center the perennial candidate. Marketing studies in 2001 and 2003 showed strong potential demand such a facility, but funding has proven an obstacle, with renovation costs estimated as high as $60 million.

The city appointed a task force last May to make recommendations for the disposition of Mill No. 5. Its report is expected in early March.

Recently, the demolition option seemed to gain momentum, when “Bud” Lewis, former chief engineer of Bates Manufacturing, went public in favor of razing the mill. Lewis felt preservation had sentimental appeal but demolition was the only common-sense course because of high renovation costs.

There are many sound reasons beyond sentimentality, however, to preserve this venerable building, though the public benefits may take years to realize.

The past has the power to motivate the future. At this time when textile production is all but gone from the United States, and our automotive industry is being overtaken by Japan, Mill No. 5 is a needed reminder of America’s technological inventiveness, entrepreneurial boldness and competitive toughness.

Those traditional values can carry us to tomorrow’s successes.

Historical sites can also be lucrative tourism magnets. Amidst rapid change and increasing uncertainty, people crave the balm of nostalgia. Communities like Boston, Charleston, S.C. and Savannah, Ga. – fortunate or farsighted enough to have preserved their past – have become popular destinations for millions of travelers.

Finally, construction economics have changed recently, making restoration a viable alternative. Skyrocketing costs for steel and other materials have driven typical prices for new construction above $200-per-square-foot.

Engineering studies have shown Mill 5 to be in remarkably good shape for its age, and public funds have already been spent on re-roofing and structural reinforcement. Even at a cost of $60 million – about $170 per square foot – renovation seems a bargain.

The mill’s location – at a city gateway, in the heart of downtown, alongside intersecting canals and within sight of the Androscoggin River and Lewiston Falls – make it visually and economically significant. Alternative energy opportunities offered by its skylights and basement water turbines are added pluses.

If a convention center isn’t doable, how about a college campus, an indoor mall, a cultural center or even a consolidated public safety facility for the Twin Cities?

Renovation won’t be easy. Quality historic restoration requires careful planning, craftsmanship and ingenuity. Unexpected challenges often arise, slowing progress.

But it’s worth the effort and resources to ensure Mill No. 5 remains standing for generations to come.

Elliott L. Epstein, a Lewiston attorney, is founder and board president of Museum L-A and an adjunct history instructor at Central Maine Community College. He can be reached at [email protected].