Citizens of MSAD 46
A "sister" site to the Voters of MSAD 46 site.Archiving and making available documents and resources in support of discussions on the important issues before us.
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7/17/2006
Analysis Of School Building Sites Presented To MSAD 46 (May 17, 2005 press release) [+/-]Analysis Of School Building Sites Presented To MSAD 46 (
Almost the entire school board and incoming Superintendent Kevin Jordan joined with the site selection sub-committee to hear a lengthy presentation from engineer Bill Hoffman and architect Stephen Blatt and see a sketch of a new K-8 school on Abbott Hill.
Hoffman and Blatt’s conclusion is that there is insufficient area to construct an additional 72,000 square feet of new building on the site next to the present Primary school. They felt that at most there is 8.2 useable acres that could be utilized, whereas 17.5 acres is the minimum size recommended for a functional, quality school for 750 students in a K-8 setting. There are space problems to park 160 automobiles and insufficient space for adequately sized all-purpose fields at this location due to the sloping topography. Costs also escalate significantly when the slope exceeds 6% was mentioned by Hoffman. There are about 4.89 net useable acres with a slope of less than 6% on Abbott Hill. “The impact of squeezing a school onto an undersized site is that the site construction costs are elevated.” An alternate use of the site might be the retention of the gym, remodeling the Primary school for administration offices, and an additional High School playing field.
A major concern of engineer Bill Hoffman was the limited access
at the present school complex and steep topography to construct another road off the hill to Grove Street. Hoffman stated, “the DOE has increased concerns on emergency access to schools”. After looking at 3 variations of road access off the hill, Hoffman and Blatt came to the conclusion that the most desirable access road to Grove Street that doesn’t exceed a 5% slope could be constructed with a cost estimated in excess of $800,000.
Stephen Blatt stated it would probably require a waiver from the Dept. of Education (DOE) to build on Abbott Hill because of space and access limitations. Scott Brown of the DOE was in Dexter recently to look at the potential sites and Blatt mentioned Brown has reservations about space limitations on Abbott Hill.
The Route 94 site was discussed at length regarding the traffic problems, its central location in the district, adequate useable space, and the cost of acquisition and site development costs. There were no strong reservations about any of these conditions on this site. Net useable acres on this site is 23-27 acres at a slope of less than 6%.
There was concern from some of the audience that all decisions in this process are made for practical reasons and that the entire community is presented all the information to know how each decision was made to pick the best possible site for the best reasons.
School board member Mike Bennett summed up the meeting consensus best when he said, “whatever decision made about the selection of a site should be based on what’s best for the education of the children of the district.”
It was agreed by all that the next step is to meet with the Maine State Planning Office as soon as possible to review these findings. The Site Selection Subcommittee will meet next Wed. May 25th to finalize a report to forward to the MSAD #46 Building Committee.
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