LEWISTON — The group hoping to save Bates Mill No. 5 will host a discussion Wednesday night at the Lewiston Public Library.
The discussion is the second Grow L+A has scheduled this summer to detail its plans for reusing the aging, sawtooth-roofed building. The group hopes to renovate the building, making it home to a grocer, a health and wellness center and small businesses.
Wednesday’s discussion is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. in Callahan Hall, upstairs at the Lewiston Public Library.
Councilors put aside $2.5 million in bonds toward the building’s demolition in their 2012-13 capital plan, but they voted in April to give the group until Oct. 3 to present a complete, fully thought-out plan to resurrect the building. The group has already met an earlier deadline, showing councilors financial forecasts and letters of interest from investors committing to use 100,000 square feet of space in the renovated building.
Grow L+A organizers say the renovation would cost between $20 million and $30 million, according to the current plan. That would involve replacing all of the windows on the walls and the roof and repairing the concrete walls, floors and beams.
According to the plan, the group would secure ownership of the building this year — either by themselves or with the unnamed investors. They’d renovate and reopen it in 2014 — 100 years after it was first built.
The space would include retail and light industrial uses, food processing, a year-round farmers market, community space and loft-style apartments.
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 has been used as storage since 1999. Councilors planned to demolish the building in 2010, but delayed. Last summer’s Riverfront Island Master Plan recommended demolishing it and redeveloping the space as a park or for business development.
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- Lewiston photographer Daniel Marquis takes photos in the top floor of Bates Mill No. 5 during a tour last year. For a video of the tour, visit sunjournal.com/mill5tour010712.
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- David Gudas, a resident of Lewiston and a city employee, takes photos inside Bates Mill No. 5 during a tour last year of the Lewiston landmark. For a video of the tour, visit sunjournal.com/mill5tour010712.
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