More than 20 years ago, I wrote a three-part series for the old Lewiston Evening Journal about the development of Lewiston’s riverfront and downtown. The articles called for public theater, riverfront walkways, restaurants, galleries and quality housing on Lisbon Street.

I proposed rehabilitating the old Lewiston Hardware building into a new courthouse and tearing down the old Ward’s building across the street to build a courtyard. I called for the city to take over the Bates Mill and rehab it into office space, restaurants and housing.

During the next two decades, one project after another came to fruition. Judge Paul Cote took the lead in building our downtown courthouse. Tom Platz, Susan Weiss and others built the public theater where once the Ritz stood in one of the most blighted areas of the city. Businesses came into that part of lower Lisbon Street, followed by a flurry of innovative chefs, led by Eric Agren, whose restaurants have revitalized the other end. Simones continues to draw from miles around.

We created a redevelopment corporation at the Bates Mill, and hundreds of jobs have come into the once-vacant buildings. Auburn Mayor Richard Trafton and I flew to Montreal and negotiated the purchase of the railroad trestle and what is now Simard-Payne Memorial Park from the Canadian National Railroad. We worked with Olympia Snowe to get federal funding for our athletic fields at Franklin Pasture.

The balloon festival, Dempsey Challenge, breweries, and film and sidewalk festivals have all contributed to the rise of downtown Lewiston as one of the hippest places to be in all of Maine.

Lewiston is a city of champions, with recent high school victories in cheerleading, soccer and hockey.

Let’s start the discussion on another 20-year plan. Here are a few thoughts:

• Locate a University of Maine Medical School in Bates Mill Building No. 5. Perhaps the biggest mistake that the citizens of Lewiston made in the past 50 years was rejecting the location of the L.A. College into the Bates Mill complex in the early 1980s. It would have provided a perfect long-term, recession-proof use of empty blighted buildings, while bringing foot traffic and perhaps even a bookstore or two into the heart of the downtown. Maine has a shortage of doctors, especially in rural, poverty-stricken areas. If a state like Vermont can support a public university medical school with half the population of Maine, then why not us? With two outstanding hospitals in the area, much of the infrastructure is already here. Scholarships and additional student loan abatement programs could be made available to those who intern and work in areas of poverty in Maine.

• Integrate Bates College into the downtown. I would like to see Bates College renovate a significant building in the downtown (the Dominican Block? one of the Wellehan buildings?) and establish a public service use that brings students into the area to help the poor, elderly, abused women, and others in need. Other colleges like Bowdoin and Colby have integrated into their respective downtowns. Bates could create internships in conjunction with the court, city hall and police department. Students would gain valuable real world experience helping the poor, and the downtown would benefit from their energy.

• Continue riverfront development. A while back I was driving on Lincoln Street and spotted a couple of huge bald eagles perched on some ice out on the river. Soon they were aloft, flying slowly just a few feet above the partially frozen river, wing spans five- or six-feet wide. It was a spectacular sight. Wouldn’t it be great if we were able to establish some sort of sanctuary for our bald eagle population along the river, and increase the population from the two or three we see out there now to a dozen or more? Let’s build a little amphitheater near the river — it doesn’t have to be anything fancy — and establish a summer Shakespeare program. Let’s expand the walkways, bicycle paths and boat launches — take full advantage of our riverfront.

• Transportation. Very exciting things are happening at our Exit 80 corridor. Our legislative delegation should work with area state representatives to have those outrageous, discriminatory turnpike tolls torn down in New Gloucester and Gardiner.

• Crime prevention. Lewiston police, in coordination with federal drug agents, have created hot spots that have resulted in numerous arrests of New York City drug dealers and have reduced gun-related and other violent crimes. This joint local-federal effort should continue aggressively in the years ahead.

• Housing. The city has aggressively demolished and rehabilitated downtown housing stock. Vacancies are down, improvements are being made to buildings and incoming populations have helped fill units that were once hopelessly vacant.

These are just a few thoughts. Many of the plans from 20 years ago have been implemented successfully. Let’s put together a new 20-year plan to make Lewiston an even greater place to live, work and play in the decades ahead.

Attorney James Howaniec was born and raised in Lewiston, graduating from Lewiston High School. He served as an Assistant Attorney General in Augusta and was elected mayor of Lewiston in 1989. He has been in private practice in Lewiston since then.