Clinton — Architects and district staff outlined preliminary designs and four candidate sites Tuesday as Clinton City Schools moves toward applying for a North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) needs‑based grant for a new primary school.

The presentation, led by Robbie Farris of the project team and project manager Mahan Kick, described a PK–2 school sized for roughly 900 students and noted DPI’s space and site guidelines for that program.

The district’s design team said the building program assumes about 120,000 square feet and a DPI minimum of roughly 19 usable acres for a 900‑plus facility. “If we know we need a 120,000 square feet, we know we need 900 plus students,” Mahan Kick, project manager, told the board. The team showed four parcels under initial review, emphasizing tradeoffs including wetlands, topography and access to utilities.

Why it matters: Clinton is seeking DPI construction funding that is awarded competitively; having a plausible site, floor plan and owner contact improves an application. The DPI needs‑based application was released in late summer and the district was told the grant application window is unusually tight — the team said the application is due Oct. 3 — creating pressure to identify the most viable site quickly.

What the team proposed and the trade‑offs
- Program and scale: The architects presented a ten‑classroom Pre‑K block (20 students per classroom under the district’s requested capacity assumption), 12 kindergarten classrooms and 14 classrooms for each of first and second grade, totaling a 908‑student design under DPI calculations.
- Site guidance: The team recommended starting with sites that offer both buildable acreage and reasonable utility access; they noted typical site costs — for example, adding fill to raise a low site, running water and sewer lines or installing a pump and tank to meet sprinkler pressure can each run on the order of $1.5 million. The presentation emphasized that such off‑site or site‑specific costs can materially change overall project budgets.
- Plan choices: Architects showed three floor‑plan concepts — a conventional double‑loaded corridor, a collaboration corridor with widened learning spaces, and a hybrid stacked plan that reduces footprint by adding a second story for older primary grades. The team estimated those options could differ by roughly $1 million or more depending on roof, glazing and layout decisions.

Board direction and next steps
Board members did not vote on a site Tuesday. Instead the district’s presenter and the superintendent asked board members and staff with local contacts to begin outreach to landowners and return letters of intent if possible. The architects urged the board that, while an application can be submitted without a final site, DPI will prefer districts that are farther along and that “if you end up with the same score as 7 other school districts … if someone else has a site and they have a floor plan, they’re further along than you are,” the team said.

The board agreed to begin conversations with property owners and to continue on‑site due diligence. District staff and the architects recommended ordering targeted geotechnical studies, a traffic impact analysis if DOT requires off‑site improvements, and quick title/easement checks for any preferred parcel.

Notable facts and numbers mentioned
- Target building program: about 120,000 square feet for a PK–2 school sized for ~900 students.
- DPI guidance referenced: a minimum of about 19 usable acres for this facility size.
- Approximate site trade‑off costs discussed: raising a low site, sprinkler pump/tank or running utilities each cited in the discussion as roughly $1.5 million order‑of‑magnitude.
- Grant timing: DPI needs‑based application window described by the team as opening in late summer and due October 3.

What’s next: The district’s project manager and architects asked the board to identify one or two preferred concepts (the board leaned toward the hybrid/stacked plan for footprint efficiency), have local board members make initial contacts with parcel owners, and allow the design team to begin a limited set of scope, cost and DOT coordination tasks so the district can file a realistic DPI application. The board asked staff to report back with any signed letters of intent or owner responses before the application deadline.