LEWISTON -- Downtown Lewiston will serve as a living laboratory for a group of University of Maine architecture students this year.

Professor Eric Stark said his senior-level class will begin a yearlong project Tuesday, creating a master plan of their own for the area between Park Street and the river. Then they'll come up with some specific design treatments.

"I like to have my students work out in the public each year, but this is the first time we've had everybody working on the same community," said Stark, professor of architecture for the University of Maine's Augusta campus. "I think it's going to have interesting results."

Students previously developed senior projects on parts of Biddeford and for the waterfront area of Hallowell. The projects have never led to actual development projects, but they have changed the way some people looked at those areas.

"We had one city councilor that changed his entire thinking because of a student's work," Stark said. "It gave him perspective he'd never had before, and he said he was looking at the area completely differently because of this."

This year, Stark said he'll be leading a team of 13 students. They begin their work Tuesday with a walking tour of the area. He expects the group will spend the fall semester familiarizing themselves with the area and developing a design master plan for the buildings, roads, sidewalks, canals and parks.

Each student will pick one aspect of the downtown and work on architectural designs.

"Usually, with master planning, you simply say, 'A walking path goes here,'" Stark said. "At this level, they don't always get the opportunity to design the actual walking path and think about what goes into it."

Stark said he expects the students will spend about one-third of their class in Lewiston.