FARMINGTON — Franklin Savings Bank has withdrawn its offer to build a covered staircase connecting Front and Main streets.

The bank will continue with its plans to create new parking areas and allow for public parking during evenings and weekends in its Front Street lots.

Selectmen signed a revised agreement Tuesday with the bank and amended a town meeting warrant article that asks voters to accept the plan.

The bank is concerned about liability for the staircase, Town Manager Richard Davis told the board. There may be a way to work around their concerns “but it’s too late in the game for this year.”

With town meeting set for April 2, the amended article will not make the town report but is available at the town office or at the town meeting.

After reconsidering its previous offer to accept liability for the public staircase and walkway along its property to Main Street, bank officials decided to slow the project down, FSB President Peter Judkins said on Wednesday.

“It’s not dead,” he said. “We thought we were doing something good for the town.”

Judkins wants to discuss the next step with the bank board but said the town and bank will continue to work on a way to relieve the bank’s responsibility. He’s looking for the town to accept more liability.

The bank will continue with the plan to create a public 12-space parking lot on its land north of Western Mountain Financial Services on Front Street. The public can park there from 7 a.m. to midnight with the bank providing salt, sand and plowing for the space.

The town will remove the plowed piles of snow and return a portion of the property tax paid by the bank, Davis told the board.

The bank’s other lots on Front Street, two on the west side of Front Street and another yet to be constructed between the bank building and the proposed public lot, can also be used by the public evenings and weekends, according to the agreement. A total of 52 spaces will be available pending voter approval.

There are other municipalities, such as Quebec, that have staircases joining different levels of the city, Davis said. He expects another municipality can provide an example for the town. Time is needed to find a model where it has been done before, he said.

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