BANGOR – City councilors signed off Monday night on a property exchange with the University of Maine System that will provide an improved work environment for system employees and a home for the city’s new police station.

The councilors’ vote authorizing an agreement with the system was unanimous. City Manager Edward Barrett will complete the agreement once the final details are worked out.

In the exchange, Bangor will get three buildings and land adjacent to the city’s Maine Business Enterprise Park, located on Maine Avenue near Bangor International Airport. UMS will relocate and consolidate its offices – and 120 employees – in the top three floors of the city’s historic W.T. Grant building in downtown Bangor.

The swap will require no exchange of money. System employees’ use of the city’s parking garage and renovations to the Grant building – which will be paid for by the city – would be factored into the deal.

The city has agreed to spend nearly $3.2 million on improvements to the W.T. Grant building, also known as the Bass building, according to the council order approved Monday night.

City Solicitor Norman Heitmann said that the plan is to complete renovations by the end of June 2005. The chancellor and his staff will remain at their current location until then, though the city hopes to be able to begin preparations for the police station project later this year.

Since the deal was announced in November, both sides have hailed it as a way to stimulate the local economy, especially in downtown Bangor, where merchants are expected to benefit from the daily presence of scores of system employees.

The UMS board of trustees approved the concept last November, authorizing Chancellor Joseph Westphal to sign off on the agreement once details were worked out. System spokesman John Diamond said Tuesday that this should occur within the next few weeks.

“We don’t see anything that’s going to prohibit us from closing the agreement,” Diamond said.

UMS representatives said earlier that their current offices are outdated and overcrowded. The cost of upgrading technological systems is prohibitive and there’s not enough space for meetings.

At the same time, the city needs to replace its aging police station on Court Street and, in a separate action Monday night, it designated the chancellor’s complex as the site of a new headquarters building.

In a historical footnote, Councilor Gerry Palmer said the system’s move into the Grant building was especially fitting. He said Raymond H. Fogler, for whom the University of Maine’s library was named, designed the downtown brick building.

The UMS buildings and property were acquired from the U.S. Department of Education, which took ownership after Dow Air Force Base closed in 1968.