FARMINGTON — The Planning Board unanimously approved an application Monday for constructing a two-story building for both commercial and residential use in Narrow Gauge Square off Front Street.

Representing applicant John Moore, who was unable to attend the meeting, Jennifer Hutchinson told the board Moore is planning a 6,000-square-foot building on the last lot of the land where the Narrow Gauge Cinema, a chiropractic and optometrist office are located. Moore developed the space for the cinema, moving the town’s movie theater from Broadway to what became Narrow Gauge Square.

The two-story building, planned to be next to Dr. Troy Norton’s new office, will offer at least two apartments on the second floor, a theater space and another commercial site on the ground floor, she said.

The application has been approved by the town board, but Moore is still developing the plan for the new theater space, Hutchinson said after the meeting.

He’s contemplating a space for a performing arts center, not only for showing select, artistic movies but live performances or screening opera through “Live at the Met,” she said.

It would be a premium space with larger seats intended for people to see “less mainstream” films and quality movies that earn Oscar nominations but are not necessarily the ones shown at the Narrow Gauge Cinema, she said.

Moore is open to and wants feedback, including whether it is something that the Farmington area would support, she said.

He may put in the foundation for the building and then work on it throughout the winter preparing for a 2011 opening, she said.

Board members raised one question: whether there is enough parking.

When Moore built the Narrow Gauge Cinema, he planned for more parking than the town’s required one space for every four seats in the cinema, Steve Kaiser, Farmington’s code enforcement officer told the board.

In addition, Moore is also filling in space behind the chiropractic and optometrist office for more parking, enough to provide for the additional project without impinging on the current businesses. The medical services are used basically during the day leaving space open for the arts center at night or on weekends.

“There’s adequate parking for the theater and three lots,” he said.

There will still be space for access to the railroad bed as well as the University of Maine at Farmington’s Prescott Field, Kaiser added.

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