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ATTLEBORO - An out-of-state firm wants to move into the city's problem-plagued industrial business park, which would pump some needed cash into the project and perhaps, more importantly, some hope.

Mayor Kevin Dumas said he's been in talks with a company from Warwick, R.I., which is interested in buying and building.

Dumas said he could not disclose the name of the firm.

The news comes as the mayor and the Attleboro Redevelopment Authority wrestle over a deal that would relieve the ARA of some of its park responsibilities and put them in the hands of the city.

The unnamed company would be the first tenant in the troubled project that remains in imminent danger of being drowned in red ink, but is still somehow being pulled from the rocky landscape in the shadow of Ides Hill off County Street. While the park's internal roads are still under development, Dumas said the company could locate on a corner lot off the nearly complete, state-funded Commerce Way, which would allow the company to build and the city to gain a toehold on pushing the park forward.

"We're ready to go with this," Dumas said. "We have somebody ready to move."

Dumas said the city plans to do more marketing if a deal can be worked out with the ARA which hoped to pass the whole project to city hall, but was rebuffed by Dumas earlier this month in ongoing talks behind closed doors.

The ARA has enough money to build all of the park's Roadway D or part of the park's Roadway A.

However, the ARA has no cash to supervise the projects. And it has no cash to pay back more than $2 million in loans and will be in default after today.

A $1 million court judgement in a land case also looms over the feeble financial status of the project.

While Dumas said the city will not assume the ARA's $3 million to $4 million debt, it will help the ARA restructure the debt and help it find ways to pay it.

Meanwhile the ARA must continue to manage parts of the project, Dumas said.

The ARA has said it can't manage without cash.