Price Of New Morgan School Comes Down

The price to build a proposed new high school was adjusted from $68.5 million to $64.75 million, said Robert Lynn of Gilbane, the construction management company hired to develop such numbers.

The Morgan Building Committee has .  The cost for that building was

After recalculating the costs, here are some new numbers presented by Lynn to the Morgan Building Committee at their recent meeting.

• Removing the $500,000 maintenance building that was proposed to be built on the site of the new school from the total cost. "It would cost less for the town to build it outside of this project," said Lynn.
• Costs to run a water line came down from $500,000 to $400,000.
• The site acquisition includes $2 million for the land and $1.7 million in business relocation costs for the business, Clinton Nurseries.
• Price for acquiring the existing antique yellow house on the property: $268,000.

There are other ways to save money on the project said Lynn, and those include reducing the size of the building.

"Right now there is a 15 percent space penalty," said Lynn.

The state, which bases its square footage per student allotment on enrollment figures, says that the size of the building should be 115,000 square feet.

The current drawings for the proposed new school show 136,000 square feet.

The final price at this point in time is $64.75 million ($3.75 million less than the ).

"Current state reimbursement costs are 36 percent," said Lynn.

This would mean the state would pay for $19 million of the total project; the town would carry $45.5 million.

One member of the committee pointed out that one number missing from the overall picture is the sale price of the existing school and its property.