GORHAM – Gorham school officials next week will scrutinize details of a proposed $14.7 million renovation and expansion of Gorham High School.

Plans call for 30,283 square feet in additions and 7,141 square feet of renovations. It would mark the school’s first building project in two decades.

The Building Committee rolled out its plans publicly at last week’s School Committee meeting.

“This is the first time the School Committee has looked at this packet,” Dennis Libby, chairman of the board, said in the meeting on Jan. 8.

The School Committee will discuss the project in a workshop at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 22, in the superintendent’s conference room on the second floor of the Gorham Municipal Center, 75 South St.

A project would require approval by the School Committee. The proposal could go to the town’s voters in November, if the Town Council approves it for a referendum. Gorham taxpayers would bear the total expense, as the state would not participate in funding.

A second referendum question would ask for a $2.1 million turf field project at the school, and passage would be tied to success of the first referendum.

Features of the renovation-expansion project include adding 12 new classrooms, a new science lab, main office relocation, security improvements, and a 1,300-square-foot cafeteria expansion. Architect Lyndon Keck said the L-shaped addition would wrap around the present gym.

Parking that now has 280 spots has been identified as insufficient and 182 additional parking spots, costing $834,000, would be added under the proposed plan.

Adjacent to the school, a house at 55 Morrill Ave. on about a one-third-acre lot that the town bought in 2012 for $155,000, would be razed to make way for parking in addition to other parking reconfigurations around the school.

“A major improvement is to add parking,” Keck said in the public meeting.

Gorham High School, parking and athletic fields are on a 23-acre site. Keck said the site would not handle more parking in the future without acquiring more land.

Costs in the proposal would include $432,000 to replace the roof that James Hager, Building Committee chairman, called a “patchwork.”

“A big-ticket item is a new roof,” Hager said.

The project would include $309,000 for electrical work and more than $1.1 million for mechanical systems improvements. Keck said the oil-fueled boiler was new in 1992, and replacing it would save operating costs.

The renovation-expansion plan was developed after a study identified overcrowding in the school, parking shortage and athletic field deficiencies.

Keck said existing classrooms are on the small side, which he called a disadvantage. Four current classrooms are located in portable buildings.

The original high school building opened in 1959 with four additions, the most recent in 1992. It had been designed for 750 students but the school now has 843.

The school would be redesigned for 950 students in the future. Superintendent Ted Sharp said Gorham might be the “fastest growing” town in Maine.

An architectural rendering of the view from the athletic field of a proposed renovated and expanded Gorham High School.