Plans for new high school in Topsham, Maine, move forward

The Topsham, Maine, Planning Board has approved construction plans for a new Mount Ararat High School.

The Forecaster reports that School Administrative District 75 has already begun work on baseball and practice fields at the campus. Construction of a new school is scheduled to be completed in 2020.

“We’re very pleased that we were able to get the application approved last night,” District Building Committee Chairman John Hodge says. “It allows us to go forward with the plans that we’ve been spending the last three years putting together.”

District voters approved the school project in March. The cost of the base project is not to exceed $60 million, which includes $6.2 million for locally funded items that the state will not cover.

Because the new school will be built on the existing school’s competition field, construction of new fields is taking place first. That enables the school to maintain access to a multipurpose field and baseball field while construction is underway.

The new baseball field should be ready by the spring of 2019.