TOPSHAM — Crooker Construction was the apparent low bidder July 20 to build new baseball and practice fields at Mt. Ararat High School.

School Administrative District 75 expects the work to take place this summer and fall, well in advance of a new high school being built.

Topsham-based Crooker was one of four bidders for the job, with a base bid of nearly $594,000, according to project manager Kathy Kahill of Portland-based PDT Architects.

The SAD 75 Building Committee will discuss the bids Aug. 2, and the following day will recommend the selection of Crooker to the Board of Directors, Kahill said.

Construction would start early next month and be substantially complete the middle of November. The fields will be built on land adjacent to neighboring Mt. Ararat Middle School.

More information can be found at construction.link75.org.

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The work is part of the school building project SAD 75 voters approved March 7 at referendum, 1,773 to 392. The base project is set at an amount not to exceed $60 million, which includes $6.2 million for locally funded items that the state will not cover.

Because the new school is to be built on the site of the existing school’s competition field, with an opening planned for fall 2020, the fields project is taking place in advance, allowing the school to maintain access to a multipurpose field and baseball field while construction is underway, according to Kahill.

Mt. Ararat High will be demolished, with a $649,000 artificial turf field built on the site by 2021.

The planned 153,000-square-foot building, slightly smaller than the current school, is designed for 750 students – 721 is the current projection for 2020 – with 40 classrooms, nine science rooms and a 17,000-square-foot gym.

The new structure will have 422 parking spaces and will replace an open-plan school built in 1973 that largely lacks interior doors and walls.

Alex Lear can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 113 or alear@theforecaster.net. Follow him on Twitter: @learics.


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