BIDDEFORD — Two months after the Biddeford City Council granted unanimous approval to seek proposals from consultants for the design of a downtown parking structure, the council is set to begin the process of evaluating the top proposals as soon as next week.

In November, the council gave approval to seek proposals for the design of a downtown parking structure, which city officials have said is crucial in continuing development if the city’s downtown and mill district.

Five firms turned in submissions: Desman Design Management, of Rocky Hill, Connecticut; Oak Point Associates of Biddeford; OES Associates, of New York City; Platz Associates of Auburn; and Winton Scott Architects, based in Portland.

Following the Dec. 16 deadline for proposals, Mayor Alan Casavant — himself a major proponent of a downtown parking structure — appointed a working group comprised of city officials and residents to review the proposals, headed by City Engineer Tom Milligan.

The committee included Richard Potvin, who serves on the Planning Board, Spiros Droggitis of the Downtown Development Commission, citizen Dan Boucher and city councilors Marc Lessard and Bob Mills.

City Manager Jim Bennett said Tuesday the committe has recommended two top consultants for evaulation by the City Council.

He said he could not name the two vendors selected by the committee, and said the council as a whole hasn’t been given any information regarding the recommendations.

“Before we do anything I want to make sense of how they want to handle it,” Bennett said.

City officials say a downtown parking structure is necessary to encourage business growth in the city’s downtown and mill district areas. The city has reached a “tipping point” in its parking availability, Casavant said.

Luring larger businesses to the area is difficult without adequate parking, according to city officials.

Bennett said in a November council meeting the lack of parking downtown has recently resulted in two unidentified large-scale businesses — which he said could have provided over 650 total new jobs — being discouraged from coming to the area.

City officials also say the opportunity to build a garage would solve a number of parking-related issues within the city. One such issue is that temporary parking currently offered on the former Maine Energy site next to the mill district, which would be eliminated if the site were to be developed.

If the council selects one of the vendors, Bennett said, construction on a parking structure won’t begin for some time. There are several steps to take before bids go out for contractors, he said.

“They need to make some decisions about size, location and policies around cost and payment, so they have a bunch of those decisions that need to be made before we would cut the firm loose to go ahead and design it to give us pre-design estimates of what it will cost based on location,” Bennett said. “Then they will go to specifications that will go out to bid.”

Bennett said the process could take anywhere between four to six months before the designs go out for bid. A council workshop on parking will be held on Feb. 2.

— Staff Writer Alan Bennett can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or abennett@journaltribune.com.