FARMINGTON – After months of planning, committee meetings and public hearings, MSAD 9 residents will get the final say on the proposed Mallett School construction project on Thursday, Jan. 22.
Polls in the nine towns in MSAD 9 with be open Thursday. Voters will be asked if they want to proceed with the project. Assuming residents approve the new construction, the school administration hopes ground would be broken in the spring of 2010 and completed roughly a year later.
The new 60,000 square foot facility will cost an estimated $18.9 million to build, 99.6 percent of which will be borne by the state’s bonding package and a Maine High Performance School grant of $150,000. MSAD 9 towns will pay the other .4 percent, or $75,000, locally.
The new school would sit on the current W.G. Mallett School campus, and would be built while students attend class in the current building. The new school, which is 20,000 square feet larger than the old one, would be built on top of the current playground and University of Maine at Farmington parking lot.
A vehicle traffic route which would enter the campus via Middle Street, curve around the west and north sides of the school, and exit onto Quebec Street. A separate, circular bus loop in front of the building would enter and exit onto Middle Street. This would keep buses and passenger cars away from each other, and away from the playgrounds to the east of the building.
|
|
The building itself, which has been affectionately referred to as “the dog,” (due to the footprint’s shape) by lead architect Stephen Blatt, would consist of a two-floor facility. The school would be accessible by non-staff through a single entrance, monitored by the administrative office.
The cafeteria, a separate room from the gym unlike the current school, will have large windows and glass walls to be seen as welcoming as possible for students. The “main street” of the school is also on the first floor; art room, computer room, music room, library. Kindergartners and a pre-kindergartner program, if implemented, would have rooms on the first floor in a semi-separate wing of the building.
|
|
Special education students, first, second and third graders would all be on the second floor. Blatt had previously noted that the recessed second floor was set back away from the walls of the first floor, “pushing it further back in the horizon,” breaking up the building and making it seem smaller when viewed from a low vantage point. The first graders would have their own stairway away from the older kids.
Each classroom will have a bathroom, sink and drinking fountain within the actual room, preventing the need for constant hall passes.
|
|
The school can double as a community building as well. Inner doors can be sealed off, making the gymnasium, cafeteria and kitchen, all of which are grouped near the entrance, available after school hours for events while restricting access to the classrooms.
The entire building is designed to be as energy efficient as possible. The building’s design utilizes “daylight harvesting” to bring natural light into the classrooms whenever possible, saving money on energy. A wood pellet boiler would provide heat in the winter, and its accompanied silo could be refilled at the rear of the school.
The design represents long hours put in by a planning committee consisting of school board directors, residents and educators, beginning in 2006 when MSAD 9 first received word that Mallett School would be added to the state’s list of potential school construction projects.
If approved at the Jan. 22 referendum, MSAD 9’s administration hopes that construction bids could go out in the fall of 2009. This timeline would aim for a 2011 opening for the new school.
