FARMINGTON – Local area residents attending a straw poll held Tuesday evening at Mt. Blue High School overwhelmingly supported the new high school building project, a 226,000 square foot facility projected to cost $63.5 million to build.
The straw poll represents a milestone for the project, which began two years ago when the district learned that the high school had placed 17th on a list of 20 building projects preliminarily approved by the state Department of Education. Sixty-six schools were considered during that funding cycle, and the state has not had another one since the recent worsening of economic conditions.
A visioning committee, consisting of 57 people, helped create a rough blueprint of what the school needed to be capable of doing. A building committee, consisting of board directors, administrators, community and business leaders and teachers, then helped Architect Lyndon Keck, of PDT Architects, develop the floor plan and budget.
The new school would be 35.8 percent larger than the current Mt. Blue High School, and situated on the same campus. Two wings of the existing building, the three-story wing in the high school and the rear wing of the Foster Regional Applied Technology Center, as well as the gymnasium, would not be torn down and instead be incorporated into the new building.
Sixty-three percent of the current building would be used in the future, after substantial renovation. Everything else would be demolished in stages, with the new, larger school being built over a three-year period.
Of the $63.5 million estimated cost of the project, $3.5 million of that would raised locally. School board directors approved a list of “Local Only” items later that night, items which the state would not fund. This included three sloped roofs, which the building committee wanted in the design to break up the facility’s profile and to provide a mechanism to remove snow. Other things the state would not pay for include some non-academic related improvements such as additional parking, field irrigation and more locker room space. The committee also went beyond the state’s recommendations in some areas, increasing the size of the 450-seat auditorium by 50 seats, adding classrooms and helping pay for a presentation forum.
Superintendent Michael Cormier estimated that the $3.5 million in locally-borne bonded funds, carried over a 20 year period, would result in the property owner on a $100,000 piece of property in a Mt. Blue Regional School District town paying an additional $31 a year.
Assuming the project is approved by the DOE, local voters would take to the polls in September. The state-funded project is strictly a one-time offer; should voters reject the plan, the state would take the money budgeted for Mt. Blue High School and go to the next school in line.
“If it’s not approve, then we’ve lost our shot at it,” Cormier said. He added that the project would bring money into Franklin County as well, once it went out to bid and construction began.
The straw poll was 47 in favor of the project and one opposed.
