Committee ranks choices of where to put SAU office Thursday

The SAU 9 Facilities Committee will meet Thursday afternoon to review proposals for where to put the school administrative office, with demonstrations planned to highlight the merits of keeping the headquarters where they are or of moving them to Kennett High School.The meeting is at 4:30 p.m. in the cafeteria at Conway Elementary School.During the review of proposals Thursday, consultant Shawn Bergeron is expected to present a plan to demolish and rebuild at the current Pine Street site, while Lee Kennedy Company, the school district's project managers for construction of a new high school and vocational center in Redstone, will offer proposals to renovate the middle school or the existing vocational center.The committee also has received rental proposals from Mountain High Marketplace, ReMax and Badger Realty. Superintendent Carl Nelson said the facilities committee will then complete a rating system of each of its options, ranking them from one to five, with five being the highest. After that the committee will consider its next steps. Members of the committee have spent the past month gathering information about their options. which include demolishing the existing building and starting anew; renovating the old 1938 portion of Kennett High school which faces Route 16; renovating the current vocational center at Kennett; renting private property; and renting public property. Opinions have varied on what direction the committee should go. Mark Hounsell, of the Conway School Board, has conducted two public tours of the existing vocational center at Kennett High School, which opened in 1978, and he would like to see it become the future home of the administrative offices."It's the Dick O'Brien plan," he said, referring to the late school board member who championed this idea. "It's what he had been talking about in using the mothballed space there. I think people may have written it off a little too hastily. ... The Conway School District should put an article on next year's warrant asking people if they would support a tenant fit-up for the SAU at the middle school as soon as space becomes available."Hounsell said the vocational center would provide about 40,000 square feet of space that the SAU could utilize. The current plans also call for about 40,000 square feet of space in the old wing of the current high school to be mothballed in the fall of 2007. "I think the vocational center is a perfect spot," Hounsell said. "Carol (Bennett, transportation coordinator) could run the buses out of the building, plus there's plenty of access for all of the public administrators. I think it would be great. I'm really going to push for it." Henry Villaume, of the Bartlett School Board, is concerned about relocating the office from North Conway to Kennett. "The option of going to Kennett moves the (centerpiece) of the SAU by 10 miles for Bartlett and Jackson," he said. "(A central location), I thought, was one of the pluses for it staying where it is." Villaume feels if the SAU moves into the existing Kennett, then Bartlett and Jackson will receive lesser services for their money."The situation would exacerbate itself," he said. "... I think we're entitled to a fair share of the SAU's time and think it would be more likely if it remained in North Conway rather than Conway."Villaume believes that once the committee completes its work, "the most affordable option" will be to rebuild the office on the current site."I still think we'll get the best benefit from where we are now," he said.The committee includes Jane Gray of Eaton; Sheryl Kovalik of Conway; George Fredette of Conway; Sarah Isberg of Jackson; Frank Moffatt of Bartlett; Sara Young-Knox of Albany; and Sue Perry of Chatham. In July, two bids to renovate the SAU 9 office on Pine Street in North Conway were rejected after they came in 43 percent higher than the estimated cost, prompting the facilities committee to scrap the idea of renovating and to look at other options. The two bids were from LA Drew, which bid $698,700, or $121.09 per square foot, and Glen Builders, which bid $716,801, or $122.66 per square foot. The board had estimated the 5,770-square-foot project would cost $486,593, or $84.33 per square foot.The SAU 9 board has budgeted $601,000 to renovate the existing property and add 3,780 square feet. About $75,000 had already been spent on minor renovations such as installing a sprinkler system. Currently the office is 3,334 square feet; the addition would put it at over 7,000 square feet.Nelson said there is roughly $460,000 available for the building construction plus all costs.