PORTLAND (AP) – A New York developer who once envisioned 635-foot hotel towers with a 300-foot-high cable car system to whisk people across Portland Harbor now says he wants to build a 30-story tower after he buys the Portland Press Herald’s downtown properties.

John Cacoulidis has entered into an agreement with an affiliate of MaineToday Media Inc. to buy the newspaper’s primary office building, its former printing press building across the street and part of a nearby parking garage.

Cacoulidis said in Thursday’s editions of the Portland Press Herald that he wants to erect a 30-story building on the site of the old printing press building and convert the main office building into offices and apartments.

He envisions a basement parking garage and retail shops, a bank and a pharmacy on the first floor, topped by eight more levels of parking, a hotel and office space.

“It will be a really classy building,” Cacoulidis said.

City regulations now limit buildings on the site to 150 feet, the equivalent of about 15 stories, Penny St. Louis, Portland’s director of planning and urban development, told The Associated Press. The tallest building in Maine is the 16-story Franklin Towers elderly housing complex in Portland, said city spokesman Nicole Clegg.

Cacoulidis did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Thursday.

MaineToday Media this week completed its purchase of the Press Herald and other Maine newspapers from The Seattle Times Co. for an undisclosed sum. MaineToday Media chief executive Richard Connor said selling the downtown properties allows the company to reduce debt and establish strong financial footing for the future.

Connor plans to move many newspaper employees to its printing plant building in South Portland, while editorial and advertising departments would operate in leased space downtown.

Cacoulidis lives in Westbury, N.Y., but owns several Maine properties, including Hope Island in the town of Cumberland, where he and his wife have a 20-room mansion, horse stables, helicopter pad and scenic ocean views. In an effort to reduce taxes, the couple tried unsuccessfully to secede from the town eight years ago.

That same year, Cacoulidis unveiled his vision for a 22-acre parcel on the South Portland waterfront for twin 635-foot hotel towers, a convention center, two hospitals, a cruise ship marina and a cable car system that could carry passengers across the harbor to and from Portland. The hotel would have been the tallest building in Maine and the largest hotel in New England, but the plan went nowhere.

In 2004, Cacoulidis offered up his island as a potential site for a liquefied natural gas terminal – with two tanks 14 stories high and a 200- to 300-foot pier for huge fuel tankers. Residents fiercely opposed the plan, but nothing came of it.