LEWISTON – Preliminary designs for a new Farwell Elementary School call for a two-story building with four extra-large classrooms, 12 regular-sized classrooms, separate music and art rooms and spaces for tutoring, conferences and special education. The grounds would include two playgrounds and a separate field.

Architect Herb Semple presented the proposed design to the Lewiston School Committee Monday night. It was the first official design presentation to committee members. A public hearing on the project will be held next week.

The current elementary school is on 4.6 acres on Farwell Street. It serves 320 students in kindergarten through grade six, but was built to hold only 215. The school is so overcrowded that its library, computer lab and kindergarten classes are housed in portable classrooms.

The proposed $11.3 million school would be set on 4.8 acres and would be more than 56,000 square feet, including a middle school-sized gym. The school would accommodate 425 students.

The draft design calls for a cluster of administrative offices near the front lobby. A music room, gym, cafeteria and stage would be on one end of the building, while classrooms would be located at the other end. A library would be placed in the middle.

Eight classrooms would be set on the first floor. Reserved for kindergarten through grade two, those classrooms would have their own bathrooms. Half would be 1,000 square feet, allowing the school to house kindergarten or prekindergarten classes. The other four would be 800 square feet.

Eight 800-square-foot classrooms would also be located on the second floor, as would a teachers’ room, resource room and tutoring rooms.

Outside, the school would have separate playgrounds for younger and older students, with a paved play area in between. It would also have separate areas for parents and buses to drop off students.

Lewiston will hold a public meeting on the project at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 21, at Farwell Elementary School.

School officials hope the project will go to a referendum vote in December.