The sale awaits final approval by the city’s planning board and the Lewiston School Committee. Superintendent Bill Webster said School Committee approval could happen soon.
The purchase price is $270,000, the appraised value of the land, Webster said.
The land, which is now known as Drouin Field, is behind the Colisee, on the corner of Walnut and Birch Streets.
The site will continue to be athletic fields and green space. It will ultimately be part of the high school’s athletics complex and replace fields otherwise displaced when a proposed new elementary school is built on the high school’s current athletic fields at the Franklin Pasture Complex. If approved, that new school is expected to open in the fall of 2019.
Agreement with Saint Dominic Academy on the land purchase “is good news for both Lewiston public schools and St. Dom’s,” Webster said. “It’s a win-win for both.”
“The next steps still need to happen,” Lewiston Athletic Director Jason Fuller said. “It still has to go through the board and the committee. If this does go through, this helps us tremendously. To have the extra field, it doesn’t ask you to depend on only one or two fields. It will also open up some things for our programs, and for the city and the community.”
With money from the sale, St. Dom’s plans to expand its own athletic fields at its Auburn campus on Gracelawn Road, according to Donald Fournier, president of Saint Dominic Academy.
St. Dom’s new field will be ready for use by the fall of 2017. Until then, the city has agreed to share Drouin Field with St. Dom’s.
St. Dom’s uses Drouin Field for practices, and members of the community are allowed to use the facility if nothing is scheduled.
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