BALTIC, Conn. (AP) – What remains of the Baltic Mill, once a cotton mill in New England’s thriving textile industry, is now a hollow hulk and piles of stones padlocked behind a chain link fence.

Developers occasionally express interest in finding a new use for the building that dates to 1901 and was destroyed by fire in 1999.

But they back out when they learn of the cleanup costs, said Dennison Allen, first selectman of Sprague.

“Somebody coming in here is going to have to spend a lot of money,” he said.

It’s a problem not only at the Baltic Mill but at numerous other abandoned industrial buildings across eastern Connecticut.

The sites – broken-down monuments to the state’s one-time dominance in the textile, munitions and hardware industries – are now little more than fire traps and costly burdens.

Several mills in the state have been converted into residences or shopping centers, but many more are eyesores requiring huge spending for environmental cleanups even before they can be marketed for future use.

In Plainfield, a fire at the vacant InterRoyal Mill last month caused the collapse of walls containing asbestos. The loss of the furniture factory will have a minimal impact on Plainfield because it had been vacant for about 20 years, First Selectman Donald Gladding said.

“The building is too deteriorated to revitalize,” he said.

Officials are instead concerned about the potential for more fires because two-thirds of the building remains, he said. State environmental officials must pull down burned walls to get access to the building’s footprint, Gladding said.

There’s hope elsewhere, with another former industrial building in town being turned into condos and another renovated into apartments and storage, he said.

Even before the costs of environmental cleanup are included, there is what Brad Schide of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation called a “real estate gap” between the appraised value of a former industrial site and its higher rehabilitation cost.

“There is no easy answer to the problem,” he said. “It depends on the markets.”

Laura Knott-Twine of the Hartford Preservation Alliance, cited another problem. “Not having a connecting highway has been an issue for many eastern Connecticut towns,” she said.

Peter Davis, the local preservation officer in Norwich, said features of the old mills – size, open floor plans and high ceilings – make them attractive to developers and potential occupants. “You have something in pretty decent framework with which to work,” he said.

Also, he said, “some people just like to preserve old mills because of their architecture and history.”

Perhaps the best known examples of new uses for old New England mills are in Lowell, Mass., where developers have transformed one-time industrial buildings into condos fetching up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But Lowell mills benefited from computer manufacturer Wang Laboratories that built offices in the city and a powerful ally in the late Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, Knott-Twine said.

“It takes money, but it also takes community interest and the public will to revitalize neighborhoods,” she said.

Helen Higgins, executive director of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, said development efforts are slow.

She pointed to a few projects in Connecticut that are in varying stages of development, such as Coltsville in Hartford, thread mills in Willimantic and the Collinsville Mills.

“These mills are big. They’re going to take a very serious business plan that in some cases are now no longer at the center of commerce,” Higgins said.

Historic preservationists hope the state will help, but they’re not optimistic, Higgins said.

Proposed legislation in the General Assembly would charge a $30 fee on real estate transactions, yielding about $30 million a year in revenue that would be divided equally for historic preservation, open space grants, affordable housing and farmland preservation.

Real estate interests are fighting the legislation, said Tim Calnen of the Connecticut Association of Realtors.

The legislation is a “piling-on syndrome of putting on fees and taxes” on real estate transactions, he said.

Real estate agents and brokers are already beleaguered by numerous fees and taxes and “before you know it, you’re talking about significant money being taken out of real estate transactions and sent to town hall,” Calnen said.

Whatever help arrives, whether public or private, it’s already too late for the mill’s historic designation, though not necessarily for development, Higgins said.

“We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do and they burned,” she said. “The area is no longer a vibrant mill.”

AP-ES-05-22-05 1557EDT