BREWER – To make room for the new Lowe’s store and garden center on Outer Wilson Street, Sargent Corp. work crews began this week to tear down vacant buildings on the site.

Sargent Corp., headquartered in Stillwater, is demolishing the closed Agway and Pickard’s Sport Shop as the first step in the multimillion-dollar construction project.

“One building out of the four buildings is down,” Tanya Pereira, Brewer’s economic development specialist, said Thursday, adding that construction trailers have been moved on to the site and demolition of the other buildings has begun.

Construction of the 139,410-square-foot retail center and 31,659-square-foot garden center is expected to begin soon. Lowe’s Home Centers Inc. has selected J.J. Vaccaro Construction of Somerville, Mass., to build the Wilson Street store.

The build-it-yourself home-improvement company announced building plans in April 2006 and received Planning Board approval for the project last October.

The estimated $18 million retail store is scheduled to open later this year or in spring 2008. The Brewer Lowe’s is expected to employ 180 to 200 people, with 80 percent of those working full time, according to Todd Morey, Lowe’s site development manager for the New England region.

There also are plans in the works for another Lowe’s on Springer Drive in Bangor on a site now occupied by Wal-Mart. The Bangor site is expected to become available next spring after Wal-Mart moves into a new and larger home behind the Blue Seal store on Stillwater Avenue.