LEWISTON — The group hoping to preserve and redevelop the saw-tooth-roofed Bates Mill No. 5 got to have their say Tuesday night — 75 minutes behind closed doors with the City Council.
“It was positive,” said Peter Flanders, a member of Grow L+A, after the executive session. “They gave us our opportunity — the opportunity to present the project — which is what we were asking for.”
Councilors stayed in executive session for another 30 minutes after Flanders and the three other members of Grow L+A left the meeting. Councilors emerged briefly, taking a short break before going into a second executive session to discuss an unrelated topic.
Grow L+A’s Five-2-Farm plan calls for using the building as a home for retail, light industrial uses, food processing, a year-round farmers market, community space and loft-style apartments.
The council has already come down in favor of doing away with the building. Councilors have agreed to put aside $2.5 million in bonds toward the demolition later this year.
Flanders said the Five-2-Farm plan has picked up four unnamed Maine investors who might be interested in helping to renovate the aging mill building. Those investors are waiting to see whether the City Council plans to move ahead with plans to demolish the building.
“We need (councilors) to say, ‘Yes, you are allowed to go forward,'” Flanders said. “We can take that to potential investors. But without it, everyone has doubt in their mind. They don’t want to put the effort forward if it’s not going to amount to anything.”
The building was designed by architect Albert Kahn, a renowned American industrial designer and one of the first to use reinforced concrete. It has two floors, each covering 145,000 square feet, and its own hydroelectric generation facility in the basement. Construction began in 1912 and wrapped up early in 1914.
The city has owned the building since 1992 and it’s been used as storage since 1999. Councilors planned to demolish the building in 2010, but delayed it. Last summer’s Riverfront Island Master Plan recommended demolishing it and redeveloping the space as a park or business development.
A Rhode Island architect made the building his senior thesis in 2011. Architect James Mangrum proposed two uses for the building: A server farm in the basement and an indoor greenhouse on the top floor. It caught the interest of local architects and developers, who formed Grow L+A around the idea.
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