By Darrell Halen

The Pelham School Board announced recently that it has entered into an agreement to buy two parcels totaling approximately 43 acres for $3 million on which to build a new high school.

The announcement was made at the board’s Wednesday, Nov. 28, meeting. The land is located off Windham Road.

The land deal is subject to voter approval in March.

In addition, the school board plans to present voters with a $44,665,000 warrant article to spend $41,411,000 to construct and originally equip the new school and $3,254,000 to renovate the current high school.

A separate warrant article for $3,116,000 would fund the construction of an auditorium at the new school.

During the meeting, architects Frank Marinace and Tobias Farkas reviewed their designs for the new school.

A road would circle the school and there would be three areas for parking with space available for future parking spaces to be build.

Designs include a baseball field, soccer field and two softball fields overlapping a field hockey field.

Testing discovered no soil contamination on the property.

“We’ve been looking at the land for a while, before you made the announcement,” Marinace said. “It’s as good a site as we’ve seen for building a school.”   

According to assessing records, one parcel is 8.7 acres and is owned by Richard A. and Karen J. Sutton. It is located at 36 Windham Road and has a log cabin on the property.

The other parcel, 34.5 acres in size, is owned by the heirs of Harry and Carrie Atwood, according to assessing records.