Parties are currently negotiating for a land swap
CARIBOU, Maine — Alan Kuniholm of PDT Architects presented the RSU 39 school board with updates to the new school project during their Jan. 6 meeting.
“We’re looking at the November referendum right now,” said Kuniholm. “We are in the middle of the process right now, at the stage of concept design approval. We are very close to having a final space allocation approval, and need that to get serious about concept design. This is what we have been doing right now.” Kuniholm, who was accompanied by Project Manager Chelsea Lipham, presented a diagram illustrating the project’s timeline.
The principal architect explained that a lot of work has been done to reach this point in the project’s timeline.
“We’ve completed the educational specifications, which was a lot of work,” said Kuniholm. “We are very close to having a finished program, and have spent a lot of time on site search. As you know, we have really been focusing on the Teague Park site.”
Kuniholm directed the board’s attention to the third Teague Park test-fit diagram. This construction sketch allows children to stay in school for the longest period of time during construction and demolition, and also brings the pre K-8 students to the center of Caribou.
“The beauty of this concept is that it locates the school closer to Park Street, and allows the old schools to operate during construction,” said Kuniholm. “It’s in town. It has utilities. We’ve done a whole bunch of preliminary analysis related to boundary surveys, preliminary geotech, traffic, radon, and we plan to do much more in the future.”
Architects are currently negotiating the Teague Park land swap with the National Park Service.
“We have appraisals in hand,” said Kuniholm. “We just got them today, so we haven’t had a chance to fully analyze them. We’ll be putting that together because we need an option on that, and we need everybody on board.”
Since the Jan. 12 straw poll for site selection had not yet occurred, Kuniholm explained the architects’ next course of action if voters approved the site.
“Normally, we would go to the Department of Education for a site approval right after the straw poll,” said Kuniholm. “In this case, we’re still working on some details with the National Park Service, RSU 39, and City Council. These things all have to come together. Right now, we are on schedule and feel confident that we have enough information that we can proceed and stay on track.”
Project Manager Lipham confirmed that the National Park Service representative from Augusta seems to be on board with all currently presented ideas regarding the project.
“There are two important things here,” said RSU 39 Superintendent Timothy Doak. “One is that we received the Yellow Book appraisal today, which tells us the value of the land. Then the National Park Service needs to verify the transfer of the lands, so what we thought would occur in March might take place in June or July. We’ll have to have a DOE meeting for the site approval, and then a referendum for the concept approval in November. That’s not how most schools do it, but because of the land swap, it is how we are doing it.”
