The Steeplegate Mall, a former Concord Steam property and the Concord Monitor property were among the sites considered by Concord School District officials as potential locations for the Rundlett Middle School, business administrator Jack Dunn revealed Tuesday.
At a community meeting Tuesday night, about 25 community members clustered around small tables cabaret-style in the Rundlett Middle School library with school officials to hear a presentation about the middle school building project and the 38-acre property at 129-139 Clinton St., that is currently the top contender for the site of a new school.
“We wanted it to be within the city limits and close to the other schools, easily accessible for students, staff and the community, hopefully within walking distance,” Dunn said. “To locate a property that would be a safe route to school and secure a property that has more field space than what we have now. And also be able to provide updated utilities as it relates to water and sewer services in the city and also try to minimize the impact that there would be on taxable property.”
Before setting their sights on the Clinton Street property, district officials also considered the Steeplegate Mall, the Concord Monitor property at 1 Monitor Drive, a property on Langdon Avenue that was once intended for the Concord Steam plant, and others Dunn said he couldn’t talk about publicly. They also considered some properties already owned by the school district, including the current Rundlett site at 114 South St., a property behind Broken Ground School at 11 Curtisville Road and a property beside White Farm at 150 Clinton St., across the street from the current proposed site.
While the district has entered into a letter of intent to purchase the Clinton Street property, which is currently owned by CenterPoint Church, the project still hinges on several key factors that have yet to fall in place, including a vote by the church congregation, a purchase and sale agreement, a decision to partner with the Granite YMCA, finalized architectural plans and an application for state building aid.
Walkability and distance of the proposed Rundlett Middle School site were the main concerns expressed by Concord community members at Tuesday’s meeting. During the question period, some attendees expressed concern about heavy traffic and the safety of students walking to school along Clinton Street, which has bike lanes on both sides, a sidewalk on one side that ends at Langley Parkway and a speed limit of 30 miles per hour, increasing to 35 closer to the I-89 ramps.
Superintendent Kathleen Murphy said they plan to create Safe Routes to School like walking paths and sidewalks using government funding that’s available for that purpose. If a purchase and sale agreement is reached, district officials have said they plan to do traffic studies to analyze what may need to be done to make Clinton Street safer and reduce congestion at the start and end of school.
Early drafts of site plan options from HMFH Architects show an idea to have two entrances on Clinton Street, with a parking area and a school building in the middle of the property, and outdoor classroom spaces and athletic fields behind.
Early HMFH drafts of floor plan options for the new Rundlett building show an idea for a primary hallway known as “main street” that connects to key areas of the school such as administrative offices, the auditorium, the gymnasium and the cafeteria, a central courtyard and clusters of classrooms for sixth, seventh and eighth grade “teams,” each with its own outdoor learning area.
“How do we make a big school small, so kids are in their neighborhood, their cluster,” said Rundlett Middle School principal Paulette Fitzgerald. “We can’t do that now, because Rundlett has a lot of long hallways.”
A few community members wondered if the Clinton Street location, which is just under a mile away from the current Rundlett building, aligns with where the majority of Concord’s student population lives. Murphy said that based on enrollment numbers in the neighborhood schools, students are pretty evenly spread throughout the city.
“If you look at all of our elementary schools and you look at the numbers there, they’re all about the same,” Murphy said. “Their numbers run between 300 and 400 at each elementary school. So we know that across the district, they’re spread out over the city.”
Murphy said late busing to transport students home to other areas of the city following after-school activities would continue at the new site. She said the district is in contact with Concord Area Transit to discuss the viability of students using city buses for transportation as well.
The most recent timeline estimates that if the sale moves forward, construction on the middle school building would begin in August 2024 and the school would open in fall 2026.
Once a purchase and sale agreement is reached with CenterPoint Church, the district will need to move swiftly to submit an application to the state for school building aid by July 1. School board member Pamela Walsh said at the meeting that while the application deadline is approaching swiftly, it’s not a deadline for any final decisions about the building project.
“That does not commit us to building a new school, it does not commit the state to giving us money, it does not commit us to a design or the Y … it’s just the fifth step in a process that has hundreds of steps,” Walsh said.