CARIBOU, Maine — While the RSU 39 communities voted in favor of a new, approximately $50 million, preK-8 school in Caribou, the group charged with seeing the project through has a great deal of work ahead.
Building Committee Chairman Frank McElwain updated the RSU 39 school board during the April 19 meeting, covering their recent discussions and plans moving forward, including new sketches for the front portion of the building.
“We want something bold that attracts attention,” McElwain said, “and we want it to look more like a school than an institutional building.”
New School Building Committee Chair Frank McElwain explains some design changes discussed for the new preK-8 school and shows some recent sketches drawn by PDT Architects of Portland during an April 19 RSU 39 board meeting at the Caribou Learning Center. (Christopher Bouchard)
McElwain showed the latest sketches of the building’s front entrance, drawn by the Portland Design Team (PDT Architects), which depict the entrance from different angles.
“These sketches reflect recent discussions we’ve had with the building committee,” McElwain said. “The three large windows are outside the administrative area, which is just to the left of the main doors, and the multipurpose room is to the left of that.”
The committee chair assured RSU 39 directors not to be thrown off by the color scheme, as the committee has not yet discussed that aspect of the building.
“The good news is that the state is supporting the construction, but we still have to stay within a budget,” McElwain told the board. “Even decisions about siding are constricted by the budget, but we may be able to go with alternatives if we need to.”
The update ended with a recap of the building project’s numerous phases of completion. The first and second phases are to construct the Superintendent’s Office and to demolish the Learning Center. The new office is expected to be finished between late summer and early fall of this year, while the demolition is expected to be finished between late fall and early winter.
Subsequent steps include constructing the new park, as the new school will go where Teague Park is currently situated, and the demolition of Teague Park and the Middle School before building the multi-million dollar preK-8 facility.
