By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

FRYEBURG – Fryeburg Academy officials will meet with architects next week to discuss plans to build a new gymnasium after a fire last Wednesday destroyed the school’s 50-year-old gym.

Meanwhile, a state fire investigator said Monday an investigation into the cause of the blaze is ongoing. “The cause is undetermined,” said Chris Stanford, a fire investigator with the state Fire Marshal’s Office.

Stanford is working with local fire officials in Fryeburg to determine the cause. Firefighting teams from four towns were dispatched to the fire early Wednesday morning, which was detected by a fire inspector as he walked out of his home.

The school lost virtually all of its athletic uniforms and equipment and its full-length basketball court. Despite that, the generosity of no fewer than 17 schools enabled the Fryeburg Academy Raiders football team to play its homecoming game Saturday against Mountain Valley.

Schools offered jerseys, socks, athletic tape, shoulder pads, pants and helmets. Mountain Valley won the game, 56-0.

Timothy Scott, development director, said Monday that school officials are scheduled to meet with three architects next week who are competing to design a new gymnasium. “We’re meeting with three architects from around the state who are interested in helping us come up with a plan,” he said. “We’ll have selected an architect by the end of that day and should have drawings within a few weeks.”

Scott said school officials had been discussing improvements to Gibson Gymnasium before it burned down. The plan had been to convert the gym to an auditorium and build a new gym to one side of the auditorium.

“We know now that it may be flip-flopped,” he said. “We’d like to build a separate theater and gym, but for the short term, we need to build a gym that will be used like the old one was.” He added that school officials would like to build a three-court gym, rather than a one-court gym.

The school will raise funds to pay for the project, since it does not receive state funding. “(The cost) will be a lot more than the insurance coverage,” Scott said.

The homecoming dance had been scheduled to be held in the gym Saturday evening. Scott said the dance was instead held at the North Conway Grand Hotel in North Conway, N.H., which allowed the school to use its space free of charge.

“It was packed,” he said. “They have capacity for 350 people and I think we used up every bit of that.”