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School Reuse Public Meeting,
Tuesday, April
19
Public Meeting,
Tuesday, April 19,
6pm, on the reuse of the Brewer schools at Brewer City Hall in the
Council Chambers. All are welcome to attend and provide input into the
reuse process.This will be the final School
Reuse Committee meeting before the final committee recommendations are
made to the City Council.
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Public Meetings Regarding the
Reuse of
Capri, Washington, State, and Brewer Middle Schools
were held in January as Brewer prepares to open its new K-8
Brewer School in the Fall of 2011.
School Reuse Presentation
by WBRC
School Sites
Presentation by City of
Brewer - Planning Dept.
Brewer Holds First
Public Meeting on
Schools
Friday, January 21, 2011 -BDN
The city is asking
residents what they want to do with three elementary schools and Brewer
Middle School once the new pre-kindergarten-through-eighth-grade Brewer
Community School opens in the fall.
The first of two
public meetings was held Thursday and another one is scheduled for 6
p.m. Tuesday at Washington Street School.
The new school on
Parkway South will replace Capri Street School, State Street School,
Washington Street School and Brewer Middle School, which were built
between 1925 and 1962.
The four buildings will become city property once vacated at the end of
the school year.
Thursday’s meeting was
held to discuss what to do with Brewer Middle School and State Street
School, and City Planner Linda Johns kicked off the meeting by giving an
overview of the two school sites.
State Street School
has 4.6 acres and Brewer Middle School sits on 0.88 acre and both are in
office-residential zoning, she said.
The school department
plans to keep the gym section of Brewer Middle School so it can be used
for administrative office space and to house the Alpha Classroom,
formerly the Alternative Choices for Teens program, Superintendent
Daniel Lee told the 30 or so people gathered at Thursday night‘s
meeting.
The school department
leases space at a cost of about $15,000 annually for the Alpha program,
and school administrators are now spread throughout the city, he said.
Mike Pullen, architect
for WBRC Architects and Engineers of Bangor, also made a short
presentation about reusing old schools, giving several examples,
including Bangor’s School House Apartments on Harlow Street, which was
once the Queen City’s high school.
“It’s done all the time,” Pullen said.
Pullen said Brewer
Middle School would be a good candidate for reuse and may qualify for
federal tax credits because of its historic value, if it is redeveloped
into affordable housing.
City leaders created an ad hoc committee in 2010 to look into
redevelopment options for the four buildings.
Moving city hall into
the old middle school has been discussed, and area businesses have
inquired about redeveloping the site, Tanya Pereira, Brewer’s deputy
director of economic development, said Thursday.
“The city’s interest
is looking at the best reuse of the property,” she said.
After the ad hoc
committee, which consists of residents and city officials, has heard
from the public, it will make recommendations to the City Council about
how to reuse the former schools.
A
copyright story from the Bangor Daily News, Friday, January 21, 2011 by
Nok-Noi Ricker.
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