BANGOR – Developers and other businesspeople looking for a place to set up shop might want to keep an eye out on Maine Avenue.

The city might put the property – once destined to be the home of its next police station – on the market if it doesn’t come up with a use for it.

So far the city has fielded one inquiry about the property from someone interested in developing office space there, City Manager Edward Barrett said last week. He declined to reveal who made the inquiry.

The city had planned to use the site for a police station, but voters nixed that idea in a citywide referendum last month, deciding to keep the station downtown instead.

As a result, the Maine Avenue site is without a plan.

City staff and elected officials have barely begun deliberating what to do with the 5-acre site near Bangor International Airport and the city’s Maine Business Enterprise Park. They’ve been involved in making the Police Department and all of its functions fit the 240 Main St. site, a smaller downtown parcel across the street from Davenport Park and the Bangor Fire Department’s central station.

City Council Chairman Frank Farrington said Saturday that the city is just beginning to explore how the Maine Avenue site might be used. He said much more discussion needs to take place before the property’s future is decided.

“We certainly want to see it developed, but whether we put a city function out there I’m not sure,” he said.

“We’ve got some great land out there. We’re interested in broadening our tax base and getting some good industry in there that will create jobs,” he said.

“Timing is everything. I hope whatever we do will have a good forward implication for 50 years,” he said.

Councilor Dan Tremble, the former council chairman who now heads the council’s business and economic development committee, agreed.

“I think it’ll be beneficial to develop that,” Tremble said Saturday. “I think there will be some interest in it. Obviously, it’s ideal right now for office space.

“There are three building there now, two that are pretty usable,” Tremble said. “The university put a lot of money into [renovating] Auburn Hall,” a brick building now on the property.

“I don’t think we want to rush this,” he said. “We want to make sure whatever we do there … is a good fit.”

Next year the city will become owner of the parcel at 107 Maine Ave. as part of a property swap with the University of Maine System.

In the exchange, the chancellor’s operation will move into parts of the historic W.T. Grant building not being used by the building’s ground-floor tenant, Epic Sports.

The city’s nearly $3.2 million Grant building overhaul has been under way for several months now. The building is expected to be ready for the estimated 120 system employees who will relocate there next summer.