The School Administrative District 75 Board of Directors unanimously approved the recommendation by the Designer Selection Committee Thursday night to select PDT Architects as its architect for a statefunded high school construction project.

The Designer Selectmen Committee conducted follow-up interviews with its top two architect firm candidates and decided to recommend PDT through a majority vote

The Portland-based PDT Architects was founded in 1977. The Designer Selection Committee conducted site visits at Mt. Blue’s campus, a combination addition and renovation project done by PDT Smith said, as well as Cony High School which was built new — both which include Career and Technical Education programs.

After the board meeting Thursday, Superintendent Brad Smith said the district will start work with the architect immediately, starting with a meeting he has scheduled with PDT Friday morning. A meeting will be set up as soon as next week with the state Department of Education and Bureau of General Services to hammer out a contract. The scope of work will be discussed and fees, most determined by a formula the state uses.

“I think the architect is ready to begin the process right away in of conducting the renovate versus new study,” Smith said.

The outcome of that analysis will be largely driven by what is found relative to the current school site. A school on the site needs to meet today’s standards and requirements.

“So it’s exciting!” Smith said. “We had two firms, either one of which we know would deliver a quality school for us, but we’ve chosen PDT and they’ve built schools around Maine. Everyone we talked to was very positive about them; very happy with the schools.”

“This is an important threshold for us,” Smith said. “It begins to feel real now. We had a great team of people who were highly devoted to making sure we have the right architect for our project.”

Now a new group, some from the Designer Selectmen Committee including four board members, will serve on the Building Committee to start talking about the project itself.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this project to get approved,” said Kim Totten, SAD 75 school board chair and a member of the Designer Selectmen Committee, on Tuesday. “We took a little bit longer to pick the architect,” since the committee was looking at two really good firms making it more difficult to choose.

“Now we can focus on moving forward and getting the preliminary work done,” she added.

The architect selection had to happen in time for the vernal pool survey and environmental studies to be done in the spring, on order to determine if a new building or renovation is order, followed by site selection.

SAD 75, Regional School Unit 5 schools and Brunswick School Department send students to Region 10 Technical High School in Brunswick. Smith noted that any possible consolidation is built into this process too.

“We’ve had conversations about CTE between the districts and certainly with Region 10 needing a $10 million remodel, that’s something that we want to have a conversation with the Region 10 board about, so we’ll examine that possibility with them,” Smith said.

Mt. Ararat High School Principal Donna Brunette served on the Designer Selection Committee and said she looks forward to diving into the design process with PDT and members of the Building Committee.

“The development of educational specifications will be next area of focus,” she said, “and this process will engage staff, students, and members of the MTA community in conversations that will create a design for a facility that advances and enhances the exceptional educational programming currently offered by the dedicated and talented staff. It is an honor to involved in this process.”

Serving on the Building Committee along with Smith is Michael Chonko of Topsham, a parent and mechanical engineer; John Hodge, a Topsham resident, parent and Executive Director of the Brunswick and Topsham Housing Authorities; Krista Chase and Matthew Cook to represent the faculty; Facilities Director Chris Shaw; Business Manager Steve Dyer; board members Dave Johnson, Kim Totten, Scott McKernan and Julie Booty and Mt. Ararat High School Principal Donna Brunette. Mt. Ararat Middle School eighth-grader Emily Robbins will serve as the student representative on the Building Committee.

Updates are posted on the MTA School Construction News link on the SAD 75 website at www.link75.org.

dmoore@timesrecord.com