FARMINGTON – After months, even years, of speculation, Lowe’s Home Centers is ready to reveal its preliminary plan for a Farmington store.

When the Planning Board meets Dec. 8, a proposed plan to build a store on a portion of the McCleery farm at Wilton and Whittier roads will be presented.

Engineers from Gorrill-Palmer Consulting Engineers, which has been hired to prepare permit applications, will present the proposal to the board but no applications have been filed yet.

“This is a preapplication meeting. The town manager and I met this summer with the engineers from Gorrill-Palmer and Todd Morey from Lowe’s Home Center,” Code Enforcement Officer Steve Kaiser said.

“They want to come in and talk about their plan and receive feedback from the board.”

The summer meeting included talks on traffic, drainage and meeting town restrictions, he said. Kaiser expects the applications to be submitted soon, he added.

Kaiser received the basic plan Monday for an approximately 17-acre parcel of open field being used to pasture cows during warmer months.

The Lowe’s proposal includes a 138,893-square-foot retail store and warehouse with approximately 400 parking spaces on the north corner of the McCleery farm. An indoor lumber yard, attached garden center, management offices, receiving and storage areas as well as outdoor loading areas are part of the plan.

According to the plan, customers would enter the store’s lot from Whittier Road.

With this project the board will work with a new state law, the Informed Growth Act, a new tool to help evaluate the economic benefits of the project, Kaiser said.

Edith McCleery plans to retain her home and barn, but a family-partnership has control of the rest of the property, she said earlier this month.

Engineers from Gorrill Palmer have already had preliminary meetings with Maine Department of Transportation, Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers, Senior Engineer, Douglas Reynolds, said in a letter to Kaiser.

Lowe’s Senior Site Development Manager Todd Morey declined comment Monday but responded “don’t know yet,” on whether the company would move forward and file the necessary applications with the town.

Lowe’s, a national chain of hardware stores, grew over the past 60 years from a single store to more than 1,500 stores in all 50 states, Canada and in Mexico, according to its Web site.