LEWISTON — Mayor Larry Gilbert hopes to get some high-priced advice on downtown development for free.

On Friday, Gilbert and city staffers met with Daniel Hewett, an instructor at Northeastern University’s School of Architecture, to get some pointers on the city and describing it for design experts.

On Oct. 7, 8 and 9, Gilbert plans to attend the Mayor’s Institute on City Design in Boston. His hope is to return home with some advice for city officials on how best to help downtown development.

“The economy’s going to change,” Gilbert said Friday. “We have to be ready when it does.”

This year’s conference is focused on seven communities. The others are Norwalk, Conn., Niagara Falls, N.Y., Cranston, R.I., Rutland, Vt., Nashua N.H., and Brockton, Mass.

Mayors will give a presentation on their cities and meet with planners, architects, landscape designers and professionals.

All expenses will be paid by the institute, which is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Architectural Foundation and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Friday’s meeting was meant to help Gilbert prepare his remarks to the group. After meeting for more than two hours, the mayor and other Lewiston officials took Hewett on a walking tour of the downtown riverfront area, from the Island Point area north of Main Street to the pedestrian bridge crossing the Androscoggin and Payne-Simard Police Memorial Park.

Hewett, who had only visited the city once before, seemed impressed with some of what he saw, particularly by the walking entrance to the city into the park. The pathway from the walking bridge seems to line up almost perfectly with the spire atop Lewiston City Hall.

“This is the beginning of a pretty strong axis,” Hewett said as he walked toward City Hall.

Individual points of interest — from the visual cues of the cityscape to restoration projects such as ongoing work at the Franco-American Heritage Center — need to be shared with the institute’s designers, Hewett said.

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Lewiston Mayor Larry Gilbert, center, walks down Lincoln Street on a tour of Lewiston on Friday for Daniel Hewett, right, an instructor in the school of architecture at Northeastern University in Boston. Gilbert was being prepared for a conference in Boston on the revitalization of northeastern cities. Touring with them, from left, Ian Houseal, Phil Nadeau, acting city administrator, and Lincoln Jeffers, assistant to the city administrator, on far right.