When Lisa Foster walks through the dilapidated house she inherited from her grandmother, she imagines the place filled with artists, families and teachers from the Willard Beach neighborhood.

The rundown living room will be transformed into a teaching studio, the kitchen and dining area a cozy cafa, and the upstairs bedrooms affordable rentals for struggling artists who have small studios on the first floor.

She even plans to fence in the back yard as a “bark park” for people who stop by with their pets to see the artists at work, use studio space, take part in community events or have lunch.

All she needs now is financing from a bank and site plan approval from the South Portland Planning Board.

Foster and Jeanelle Demers, her studio manager, are taking the first steps to move the project forward.

They are scheduled to present their plans for the Willard Square Studio Art Center to the Willard Neighborhood Association on Thursday at 7 p.m., in the community room at the Betsy Ross House.

“I have to say it sounds like an intriguing idea, and just the sort of thing that you would want in Willard Square,” said Councilor Tom Coward, who lives in District 1, which includes the Willard Beach neighborhood.

Coward, who planned to attend Thursday’s meeting, noted that “there has always been commercial activity down there. It seems to me an appropriate area for the kind of development she is proposing.”

Coward lauded Foster for approaching the neighbors first “to get the community on board” before seeking city approval.

Foster, who resides full time in England, has been planning to renovate the house at 408 Preble St. since she inherited it in 2003.

With interest rates low, Foster wants to undertake the project this year, with an eye toward opening in July.

She is a principal in Dagmar Developments, the corporation she and her husband formed to develop the project.

The city currently values the property at $174,600, with the land worth $164,700.

Foster’s husband, Mark Foley, is a British architect who specializes in community planning. He developed plans to renovate the main house and also add four residential units on a vacant lot behind it.

Parking would be developed on part of the lot that fronts Willow Street, where a crumbling barn is located now.

The site is in a prime location, at the corner of Preble and Willow, a main road to the city’s most popular public beach.

It also is next door to Scratch bakery, which has a devoted clientele who come from South Portland, Cape Elizabeth and Portland for artisanal breads and desserts.

Residents have expressed an interest in re-creating historic Willard Square as it was decades ago, with a mixed use of residences and small businesses.

In the 1920s, Willard Square boasted a drug store and an A&P grocery. A trolley ran through the square and there was a watering trough for horses.

Foster said her vision is to transform her grandmother’s old house into a meeting place for artists and people who live in the neighborhood.

Residents would be able to join the arts center by paying an annual individual or family membership fee that would be under $100.

She hopes to run the studio as a cooperative, where people buy yearly memberships. She also would offer yoga classes in the morning and arts lectures at night.

Her ambitious plans include having an outdoor cafa that serves wine and beer in the summer, where the front yard is now.

Foster said she realizes that she cannot run the art studio from England, so she hired Demers as her live-in studio manager for the property after advertising on craigslist, an online classified section.

Demers, 22, studied art at the University of Vermont and is originally from Auburn.

“We hope to become a place where artists can rent affordable studio space, and the community can become members of the program and be able to gather to enjoy lectures, art classes, exhibits and musical events in a welcoming setting,” Demers states on a MySpace Web page devoted to the project.

Foster hopes the renovate the dilapidated house, which she inherited in 2003 from her late grandmother. Lisa Foster takes measurements of the house she plans to transform into an artists’ cooperative, as Jeanelle Demers takes notes. Foster has hired Demers to be her live-in studio manager at the future Willard Square Art Studio on Preble Street.