Newly merged district in New York selects architect for consolidated school

A newly formed school district in New York state has selected an architect to design a consolidated campus.

The Watertown Daily Times reports the Boquet Valley Central School District plans to create one building, with related amenities such as an athletic complex and support buildings, into one centralized location.

The school board selected BCA Architects & Engineers over 13 other architectural firms. Residents of the Elizabethtown-Lewis Central School District and the Westport Central School District voted in December 2018 to merge.

The new district encompasses nearly 250 square miles in Essex County. Currently, there are 475 students in two schools, each of which is nearly 100 years old.

"We need another building that's going to last 100 years," says Boquet Valley Superintendent Joshua R. Meyer. "The boards of education for the last 20 years or so have made decisions to save programming instead of doing some needed capital work in these buildings that could use quite a bit of work. We're at the point where it just makes sense for a new centrally located building."

Sanitizing and social distance may play into the design.

"We're building a school for the future of education, but we're also building it to incorporate everything we've learned over the past four months about the healthfulness of a facility and how we need to guard and protect the kids against the potential spread of viruses and such," says Michael J. Harris, lead architect for the project and BCA vice president of architecture.

Harris anticipates it will be a four-year process from planning to building, with students and staff moving into the building in 2024.