CARIBOU, Maine — The Building Committee, which consists of RSU 39 faculty members, PDT Architects in Portland, Parks and Rec Director Gary Marquis, City Manager Austin Bleess, Sam Collins and Justin Powers, is moving ahead with a new preK-8 school project for the city of Caribou.
During their most recent work session, they agreed to schedule a public meeting for Wednesday, April 27, 2016 at 6 p.m. at the Caribou Performing Arts Center and viewed a recent sketch created by PDT Architects.
“Everything is falling into place right now,” said Alan Kuniholm of PDT Architects, referring to how recent sketches, incorporating feedback from the committee, all include a main hall that connects the entrances and exits as well as a hard surface play area that connects to the recreation center.
Kuniholm also assured Facilities Director Wayne St. Pierre that there will be access for large snow-removal equipment to the hard surface play area in the winter.
“I think Wayne should mark up the sketch and let us know where he would push the snow, and need to store plowing equipment,” said Lyndon Keck of PDT via Skype call. “Now is the time to change these things so it is functional for everyone.”
Keck asked Assistant Superintendent Lois Brewer and Limestone Principal Susan White if they approved of the most recent sketch.
“Pre-K safety is definitely improved,” said White, to which Brewer agreed. “There’s nothing good about a playground at your front door.”
Kuniholm informed the committee that they are moving forward with the current plan, continuing to ask for feedback, and refining everything along the way.
The sketch displayed during the April 8 meeting featured a two-story school with the first floor containing pre-K to fourth grade classrooms. With the exception of four 1,000 square foot kindergarten classrooms, each grade has four, 800 square foot classrooms while pre-K has two 800 square foot classes. The first floor includes a 2,400 square foot kitchen, a 3,750 square foot cafeteria, a 5,672 square foot gym, a 2,575 square foot learning commons, band and chorus rooms, and an innovation center that consists of several larger rooms across the main hallway.
The second floor, in this scheme, only takes up half of the building, with the east half being single story. It includes grades five through eight, health, foreign language, and science classrooms, and access to the first floor roof.
The second floor can be accessed by either elevator or stairs.
Committee Member Kent Forbes commented on how, since the stairs wrap around the elevator, it may be difficult to see the kids in that part of the school.
“We want to to make the school safe,” said Kuniholm, “so if there are places like that, as we start to fine tune the plans, that are problematic or unsupervisable, then we can certainly make changes.”
“Assuming everyone loves this design, what are the next iterations for this project?” Brewer asked.
“We’re trying to complete the concept design and get site approval from the state,” said Kuniholm. “We have to put budgets to this plan and start to get real about it, so what I need from you all right now is verification on the program and educational fit. At the end of concept design, by the time we get to the voters, we want to have everything locked down.
“We want to have the strategy of the building, the appearance, and budget locked down. Right now, it’s the big stuff. If we agree on the site plan, then we’ll take it and run with it. We are quickly going to put it into CAD (computer-aided design software), so you won’t see any rough drawings anymore. Once we go into CAD, we can still move things around, but we really want to avoid moving backwards,” he added.
PDT Architects will start looking into other aspects of the project such as the envelope, the roof structure, lighting, windows, and the color scheme of the building’s exterior.
Keck suggested bringing the site plan to the public and taking citizen feedback into consideration, and also seeing if the community is willing to fund certain aspects of the project via taxes.
While the Department of Education could fund the project entirely, they will not pay for certain aspects, such as a sloped roof. The committee agreed that a public meeting in which these issues were posed could help them obtain a clearer idea of the final result.
RSU 39 Superintendent Timothy Doak asked Keck about other communities that have gone through this process, and how many of them typically receive additional funding via local tax dollars.
“It varies, and depends on the community and their financial ability,” said Keck. According to the Portland architect, some schools complete the project without asking for any local funding whereas other communities, such as Hampden and Lewiston, have respectively allocated nine and four million dollars to their school projects through local taxes.
The committee is also looking at fund-raising opportunities, which could significantly improve the project’s outcome without burdening local taxpayers.
