AUBURN – As it turns out, an old bottling plant is the perfect spot for a new housing development.

The walls and floors of the old Vincent Bottling Co. at 80 Mill St. in New Auburn are solid and sturdy, built in 1927 to hold vats of soft drinks and empty glass bottles.

The building, due to be refurbished this fall as a 17-unit elder housing development, has held up well, Housing Authority Director Richard Whiting says.

“It’s built like most industrial buildings in the area, but unlike an old mill, there’s no environmental cleanup,” Whiting said. “Everything they made there was safe to drink. That made it easier for us.”

Right now, Auburn Housing officials are trying to figure out what to name the new development. They know that “Vincent” will be part of the name. They even have a handful of the plant’s old Nehi and ginger ale bottles that will be displayed in the building’s community room.

But they don’t know how they’ll use the name.

“We thought about calling it Chateau Vincent, but that sounded kind of pretentious,” Whiting said.

Work is scheduled to begin in the fall and could conclude by late summer 2009. The authority has architectural drawings to show what the outside of the building will look like when it is finished. Engineers are designing the interior. So far, the design calls for 17 one- and two-bedroom units, including four handicap-accessible apartments. Renovations would include building a new elevator for the three-story building.

The project will be paid for using proceeds from $2.6 million in Maine housing tax credits being marketed through the Northern New England Housing Fund this summer.

“Right now, we’re in the phase where we’re trying to do what we can to make the building as environmentally green as possible,” Whiting said. That could help the agency qualify for other grants.

The authority is considering including a passive solar heating system, using the building’s 5,000-square-foot roof to provide some of the tenants’ hot water.

“That’s the kind of thing that could pay off in a lot of different ways, not just grants,” Whiting said. “It could make running the building much less expensive. That would be a great payback for the investment.”