Last year, the Concord School District was willing to pay $3.5 million for a parcel of land owned by CenterPoint Church before the church congregation rejected the proposal, according to public documents.

An unredacted copy of the District’s February 2022 letter of intent to purchase the property lists the price as $3.5 million. The Monitor reviewed the unredacted letter of intent, which was obtained through a Right to Know request, as part of Sunshine Week. 

Concord School District officials first announced their interest in purchasing the church’s land in March 2022. While not a binding agreement, the letter marked the start of negotiations that the district hoped would lead to a purchase of the 38-acre property to build a new Rundlett Middle School building. But in October 2022, members of the CenterPoint Church congregation voted against moving forward to sell the land.

“This site features easy access for families, proximity to the current middle school, outdoor learning opportunities for the District and the community at large and the potential for expanded partnership with community and youth organizations, including the Concord YMCA,” District officials wrote in a press release March 16, 2022.

The District has been planning for a Rundlett building project since 2016, when it was decided that repairs and upgrades needed in the current building on South Street were extensive enough to consider an alternative. 

District officials looked at 18 properties throughout the city that could potentially be a site for the future middle school before settling on the Clinton Street site. One of them is the current site on South Street, which one vocal citizens’ group favored over Clinton Street.

In a second setback that came one month after the Church vote, the state ranked Concord’s Rundlett building project fourth on the priority list for a School Building Aid grant. The School Building Authority estimated at the time that they’d have about $49 million in aid from the state to give out, meaning only the top three projects on the list would be funded unless the state allocates more.

Concord School Board members and district administrators have been vocal in their advocacy for the state to allocate more school building aid funding. Last month, Gov. Chris Sununu proposed $75 million for the Building Aid program in the FY 2024 and 2025 state budget, and there are several different bills currently in the legislature that seek to increase state funding to the Building Aid program.

]]>