AUBURN — The concept design for a new Edward Little High School is beginning to take shape.
At a meeting at Auburn Hall on Tuesday night, members of the ELHS Building Committee and architects from the Harriman design team’s local branch discussed designs for the proposed project at the site of the school at 77 Harris St.
Over the past year, the 14 Building Committee members visited schools in Massachusetts and Maine, seeking inspiration for the project.
Mark Lee and Lisa Salwin, architects from Harriman, offered three potential concept designs to show the general placement of classrooms, staircases, libraries and gymnasiums. The most popular was one based around a large inner courtyard.
“It can be a space that really enhances the building itself, the sense that you’re in a a space that’s both inside an outside,” Lee said. “It could become an outdoor learning space, with art and science classes.”
Apart from the bare bones of a design, priorities that emerged included a 1,200-seat auditorium for between $4.8 million and $8.7 million, and a new state-of-the-art athletic stadium for between $1.8 million and $2.3 million.
School Business Manager and committee member Adam Hanson said after three years, Westbrook High School’s 1,000-seat Performing Arts Center began to generate enough income to be self-sufficient.
A 1,200-seat auditorium, the committee said, would be a huge draw, compared to The Dolard & Priscilla Gendron Franco Center’s 428-seat space in Lewiston.
But following community feedback, a few extras on the list were cut: a black box theater for the arts wing, a green room where performers dress, a swimming pool, and a separate second turf field.
Architect Mark Lee displays a design for a new Edward Little High School to the Auburn School Department Building Committee at Auburn Hall on Tuesday evening. (Sun Journal photo by Jon Bolduc)
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