PARIS — A class project intended to design a community recreational facility to promote healthy living in the Oxford Hills area was praised by the Oxford Hills School District Board of Directors Monday night.

“Fantastic job,” Waterford Director Bill Hanger told the second- and third-year engineering and architectural design students at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School after they presented four designs ranging in cost from $3.7 million to $10.6 million during a 45-minute presentation to the board.

Teacher John Bell said the students began working on the designs last October after a group of people approached him with the idea to have them conceptualize and design a community recreational center. Bell said the idea was to help promote awareness for healthy habits after the results of a countywide survey last year showed discouraging health data about Oxford Hills residents.

“The idea is to build a facility that is attached to the high school and could be used by high school students during the school day, but would also be open to the Oxford Hills communities after school,” said Bell. “It is intended to offer recreational opportunities for students and residents beyond the organized sports teams.”

The plan is conceptual only and not something that will fit into the school budget, noted School Superintendent Rick Colpitts.

“It’s the new Oxford Hills night life,” said student Jordan Croteau as he unveiled a design created by him and classmates Josh MacDonald and Logan Sanborn that showed a multipurpose gym with seating for 80 people, a regulation size basketball court and an indoor track 14 feet above the court, among other amenities.

Croteau was one of a half a dozen students from the engineering and architectural design class who presented designs to the board.

Bell said the students started their designs with several features that were considered important to a community recreational center such as a competition-size swimming pool that would be available for recreational swimming, a climbing wall, cardio exercise room, strength and conditioning room and a multipurpose room. A large lobby/cafe area where healthy foods and drinks could be served was also part of the design criteria.

More expensive options such as an indoor track and multipurpose gym were also incorporated into some of the designs.

The students had previously presented their designs to the Oxford Hills School District Board of Directors after presenting the designs to Colpitts and Assistant Superintendent Pat Hartnett and others earlier in the year. They then presented the designs to architects at the Portland Design Team, the state’s largest architectural firm and the designer of the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

“The feedback from the architects was overwhelmingly positive and supportive,” said Bell of the presentation that was set up by Colpitts. “Since PDT is in the process of transitioning to the software the students use, tips and ideas were exchanged in both directions.”

The need for a community-wide recreation center in the Oxford Hills has been discussed on and off for many years.

About a decade ago, a group of local people decided to study the need for a community recreational center or for a YMCA in the Oxford Hills area, said Pat Carson, health coordinator of the Oxford Hills School District.

Out of that study came a 76-page report that found the area was not adequately served by a major recreational facility despite there being a population to support it. Ninety-six percent of people surveyed at the time said the greatest need in the Oxford Hills was a recreational center and pool to serve the youth of the area.

By 2003, supporters of a YMCA center were looking at the C.B. Cummings & Sons Co. property in downtown Norway as a possible location and an application for a $100,000 grant to survey the defunct dowel mill was submitted to the federal Rural Community Development Initiative Program to explore, in part, the feasibility of locating a $7 million YMCA multipurpose recreation center on the 4.5 acre property.

In the end, the need was there, but the funding was not, Carson said.

While a decade later officials agree the need is even more important, the funding remains elusive.

“How do you implement this with our budget?” asked Superintendent Rick Colpitts.

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