ATTLEBORO - While the city's industrial business park project has become mired in financial problems, the effort to revitalize downtown is apparently steaming ahead.

The Attleboro Redevelopment Authority has completed the purchase of several pieces of property owned by Automatic Machine Products on the northern edge of a 32-acre swath of land to be transformed by transportation, residential and commercial improvements, said ARA executive director Michael Milanoski.

The ARA paid $594,176 for a factory building on 1.2 acres of land at the corner of Wall and South Main streets in the latest purchase, he said.

The property is assessed at about $719,000 but the ARA got a lower price because of pollution, which will have to be cleaned up, Milanoski said.

An Automatic building on the south side of Wall was bought by the ARA in November for $1.6 million. A small Automatic building, also on the south side of Wall, was bought by the ARA in 2006 for $225,000. That structure was demolished last fall. The latest acquisition will allow the ARA to begin clearing almost 4 acres of the 32 included in the first two phases of the downtown project, possibly by early next year, Milanoski said.

Milanoski said Automatic plans to be out of its buildings and into its new Taunton facility by sometime in November.

A plan to move Automatic into the new industrial business park fell through because of timing issues and unexpectedly high development costs.

Automatic's withdrawal from the park cost the ARA cash from land sales and made the park's financial problems worse.

All told the ARA paid about $2.4 million for all the Automatic property that encompasses 3.7 acres.

The ARA is also paying Automatic $1.2 million in relocation costs. Money for the deal comes from grants issued by the Federal Transit Administration that has been obtained by U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern D-Worcester, over a number of years.

All told, the ARA has more than $10 million in federal money and matching state grants to use on the first phase of the $60 million multi-decade revitalization effort.

The first phase is expected to cost around $14.7 million. The city will add $2.4 million to the $10 million contributed by the federal and state governments.

Land sales are expected to cover the remainder.

Meanwhile, the ARA and the city's administration are trying to find their way out of a financial morass with the new industrial business park now under construction off County Street that came about partly because of skyrocketing land costs. A jury recently awarded a landowner $1.2 million in an eminent domain case over property taken by the ARA for the park. In another blow a second business, NeedleTech Inc., which planned to move into the park, withdrew because of delays in construction costing the ARA more money in land sales.