BATH

Bath City Council has unanimously approved an option agreement with Regional School Unit 1 on the Wing Farm property.

The option agreement grants RSU 1 the exclusive right to purchase the Wing Farm site. According to the proposal language approved by the city council on Wednesday, the option will expire in less than a year, on July 31, 2017, although RSU 1 can extend the option up to a year with a written notice.

The school unit and city agreed to a purchase price of $277,500 for just over 26 acres of land at the Wing Farm property. That price is the average of two appraisals done on the property, according to City Manager Bill Giroux.

“The RSU has a lot to do after, if you approve this option,” said Giroux during council deliberations. “They still have a lot of work to do and there’s a lot of process for them, but this is the city council’s piece of this as the property seller.”

In an interview last month, RSU 1 Superintendent Patrick Manuel explained that the option agreement allows the school district to secure the property to move forward with the state approval process without binding it to pay for the site if problems arise.

“(The option) doesn’t bind us. It allows us to do some things on the site — to basically research it and look for certain things, and make sure it’s going to be the right fit for a new school,” said Manuel. “But it’s not set in stone.”

Indeed, while the option agreement wraps up the city’s direct involvement in the project, it is only a first step in the RSU’s multi-year plan to build a new Morse High School. With an option agreement on the property, RSU 1 can now seek site approval from the state Department of Education. The project would then enter a concept design phase, which would also need to be approved by the department. If RSU 1 is successful in getting the project approved, it then has to bring it before voters for a bond referendum to fund the building of the high school.

Following that, the RSU could begin the multi-year process of building the high school, which would involve a competitive bidding process and construction. The tentative schedule for the project has the school opening in January 2020 if everything goes according to plan.

nstrout@timesrecord.com

Price tag

• THE SCHOOL UNIT and city of Bath agreed to a purchase price of $277,500 for just over 26 acres of land at the Wing Farm property. That price is the average of two appraisals done on the property, according to City Manager Bill Giroux.