At a joint meeting of the Gorham Town Council and School Committee on June 27, Oak Point Associates, hired by the School Committee to conduct a feasibility study on upgrades to Gorham High School, reviewed their results. The company presented three options to address safety, parking, athletic spaces, and educational programing needs for the district’s increasing number of high school students, estimated at 955 within ten years. A facility would be designed for 1,100 students. There is little possibility of state funding for the project.
The three options include building on to the existing GHS structure and potentially moving athletic fields off-site, building a new high school with athletic fields at a new location, or “flip-flopping” GHS with Gorham Middle School and renovating both buildings.
The feasibility study made clear that the least expensive option would be to build on to the existing high school structure and to potentially move some athletic fields off-site. The most expensive option would be exchanging use of GHS with GMS, followed by the option of building a high school and athletic fields at a new location. The purpose of the study was to examine the options and narrow them down to one that can be examined more closely.
After discussion and suggestions that included closer examination of the proposed components, such as the size of a competition stadium and the possible use of part of Robie Park for athletic fields as well as the amount of parking needed for a stadium, all Council members expressed a preference for renovating and enlarging the existing high school, the least costly option.
The cost is estimated to be between $53.7 and $63 million depending on enhancement options. Although the Town Council did not vote on any option, in a July 10 letter to the Council, Superintendent Heather Perry stated that she believed we “have now narrowed the scope of our work to the option of building onto the existing GHS site.”
According to Perry, the next step should be to hire professional architectural and engineering services to work with the GHS Building and Athletic Committees in completing more detailed designs for the potential project. This will require requesting some “seed money” from the Town Council.
Once funding for the design work is secured and a firm is selected, a draft design would be brought back to the School Committee for feedback and revisions. The School Committee would then request a joint meeting with the Town Council to share the draft design and solicit feedback and additional revisions.
“I look forward to continuing this important work in a methodical and transparent manner to insure that any proposal brought to the voters of Gorham to approve does its best to meet the long term educational needs of our children while balancing the needs of our taxpayers for efficiency,” said Perry.