In a span of months, local school district officials have gone from discussing the possibility of closing Harpswell’s only public school to talk of building a brand-new facility.
In an April 13 email, Maine School Administrative District 75 Board of Directors Chair Ryan Larsen, of Harpswell, and Facilities Committee Chair Andrew “Andy” Begin, of Bowdoinham, said the district is now considering whether to build a new Harpswell Community School.
“Given the comparable cost ranges and the long-term benefits of new construction, the Facilities Committee is currently leaning toward a recommendation to pursue a new building,” Larsen and Begin said in the email. “However, this is preliminary and subject to community input and board approval.”
Begin first mentioned the possibility of constructing a new facility to replace the existing Harpswell school at the board’s meeting on April 9. MSAD 75 includes Harpswell, Topsham, Bowdoin and Bowdoinham.
District officials are working with Auburn-based architectural firm Harriman on a long-range facilities master plan that includes recommendations for replacing, renovating or closing some of MSAD 75’s older facilities in the coming years. Three of the district’s five elementary schools are at least 70 years old, including the one in Harpswell.
The district hired Harriman to develop a plan that assesses all school buildings, projects future enrollment and demographics, and gathers public and stakeholder input. Officials have been hosting a series of community forums, with the next one scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 13, at Harpswell Community School.
The district initially considered 12 options to address the problem of aging schools and other facilities within MSAD 75. Some of the options included school closures.
But in February, district leaders said they were no longer considering closing the Harpswell school and would focus instead on developing a plan to renovate it. They said feedback from local residents overwhelmingly favored keeping the school open.
Harpswell Community School is the town’s only public school. West Harpswell School closed in 2011. A charter school called Harpswell Coastal Academy operated in the former West Harpswell School for 10 years before closing in 2023.
Harpswell Community School’s original section, built in 1956, contains five classrooms that don’t comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Additions were built in 1960, 1980 and 1996.
In their email, Larsen and Begin said officials estimate a cost range of roughly $16 million to $19.5 million to fully renovate Harpswell Community School, with the “greatest challenges” in the building’s central, oldest section. Their estimate for building a new school next to the existing one has a similar cost range of $16.7 million to $20.1 million.
“I think, regardless, it makes sense to give Harpswell a new school,” Begin told the board on April 9. “It’s old and it needs to be updated.”
Over the next year, Harriman will move into planning and design work, including concept designs and refined cost estimates, Begin and Larsen said. If the school board advances a proposal, it would then seek voter approval via referendum, currently anticipated for November 2028. All four towns would vote on the measure and share the cost if it passes.
A construction timeline has not been established, they said. Typically, school construction projects take roughly one to two years, depending on complexity.
If a new Harpswell Community School were built on an adjacent site, classes would continue in the existing building during construction, minimizing disruption to students and staff, the two school board members said.
At the April 9 meeting, Begin said the district is looking at total costs of $120 million to $145 million to implement all of the master plan’s recommendations. An assessment by Harriman found that $60 million to $80 million of spending would be required even if MSAD 75 doesn’t build anything new.
To give a sense of the potential impact on taxpayers, Begin estimated that spending $100 million on facilities improvements would likely translate to an average property tax increase of $300-$350 for homeowners across the district.
“It’s exciting stuff, but expensive stuff,” he said.
