Meroby Elementary School on Cross Street in Mexico is expected to become the headquarters for most town departments in 2025. Town Manager Raquel Welch-Day told selectmen early this month that Regional School Unit 10 will turn the school over to the town after its K-8 school opens on the same property in the fall of 2025. Bruce Farrin/Rumford Falls Times
MEXICO — The town is planning to relocate its departments to the Meroby Elementary School after it closes in 2025, Town Manager Raquel Welch-Day said at the May 6 Select Board meeting.
She said the school at 21 Cross St. will be turned over to the town after the new Regional School Unit 10 school for grades K-8 opens at the same site in the fall of 2025.
“We’re looking at moving the Town Office, the police, recreation, the library and the fire department, all into that building,” Welch-Day said. “All we’d have to construct is a building outside to house the firetrucks.”
The departments are at 134 Main St.
The town highway garage will remain at 265 Roxbury Road.
As a result, Welch-Day said, “Plans for the new fire department have tentatively changed.”
At the annual town meeting last June, voters approved the purchase of 20 acres at 165 Roxbury Road for $100,000 for a new fire station. With the acquisition of the school, Welch-Day said, they don’t yet know what they’ll do with the Roxbury Road land, where they had already done some site work.
Welch-Day, the Select Board and a couple of department heads did a walkthrough of the Meroby school April 20.
Selectman Cliff Stewart commented that doing this was “‘a no-brainer,'” Welch-Day said, “to put everybody under one roof. Then you’re only worrying about one furnace, one roof.”
It’s the only way for the town to save money, she said. “Trying to keep maintaining what you have is by consolidating, put us all in one spot.”
“There’s going to have to be some modifications to block things off (inside the school), but it’s cheap,” she said.
She said the move from the central office into the building would likely happen first. “We can just take our stuff and move in. Nothing needs to be done to that section (of the school building).”
Welch-Day said, “We can move without a town vote, but to sell the town buildings, we’ll need a town vote. I can’t imagine they’re not going to say, ‘Sell the buildings.'”
Welch-Day said she hoped someone would want the town office for offices.
“I can see the rec building up there (on Parker Street) being used for apartments,” she said. “Companies are always retrofitting old buildings like that for elderly housing. So, we’ll see.”
“It will be nice to have everybody under one roof,” she said.
The $91.8 million school is planned for the site of Mountain Valley Middle School at 58 Highland Terrace and Meroby Elementary School. It would replace those schools and Rumford Elementary School.
It would have space for up to 1,050 students and for children with disabilities from birth to 5 years old. Plans include a health clinic in partnership with Rumford Hospital and an early childhood education program run by Region 9 School of Technology staff and students.
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