LEWISTON – Lewiston will get a new Farwell Elementary School.

Voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a plan to demolish the current Farwell school and replace it with a $10.7 million building on the same Farwell Street site. In a separate referendum question, they also OK’d the addition of a middle school-sized gym to the project.

“It’s a good day for the children of Lewiston,” said Superintendent Leon Levesque.

The vote was 727-83 for the new school. It was 648-157 for the bigger gym.

According to the city clerk’s office, 815 people – or only 3 percent of the 27,543 eligible voters – cast ballots in the special election Tuesday.

The few who did turn out had to brave snow and freezing rain, but some said they wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

“I feel Farwell School is needed. This is the future government, these children,” said 66-year-old Gill Lessard, who voted midmorning. “If we can spend money on all kinds of other stuff, we should educate our children to the best of our abilities.”

The current Farwell school is 50 years old, overcrowded and in need of $3 million in repairs. The roof leaks, and the heating, plumbing and electrical systems need to be replaced. TVs, printers and photocopiers line the hallway because staff members have no other place to put them. The building has too little classroom and kitchen space, and there are only two bathrooms for the 320 pupils in kindergarten through grade six.

In 2002, the Maine Department of Education named the school the 10th-neediest in Maine. The state agreed to help pay for a new school.

Under the plan approved Tuesday, the new school will be set on 4.8 acres and will accommodate 425 students. With the state’s new funding formula, the state will pay for nearly the entire project, according to Levesque. The city will likely pay $33,500 over 20 years and another $566,000 for the bigger gym.

Now that the school system has voter approval, officials will move forward with interior design plans. They must also decide where to house Farwell’s 320 students for a year-and-a-half while the old school is razed and the new school is built.

Levesque said the system will seek a single place to relocate staff and students rather than distribute them throughout the city’s other elementary schools.

“What we’re looking for is a site for a temporary Farwell,” he said.

The school system had not looked for a site earlier, Levesque said, because voters hadn’t approved the project and, “We thought that would be presumptuous on our part.”

Construction on the new school is scheduled to begin March 2006. It is expected to be finished by August 2007.