Unionville-Chadds Ford School District leaders laid out three options for Patton Middle School and a related plan to restructure district debt at the Jan. 13 work session, saying the choices involve different construction scopes, timelines and financing impacts.

The district’s facilities and finance team presented cost estimates based on 2026–27 prices, the earliest realistic window for construction after two years of design work. The “maintain” option, described as a comprehensive renovation covering roughly 75% of the building that has not been updated, was priced at about $67,000,000. A midrange “renovate” option would partially demolish and add an instructional wing, update MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) systems and bathrooms. A full “replace” option would demolish the existing building and construct a new facility.

District staff said timelines differ: a full replacement was projected to take roughly five years from design to completion; renovation about seven years; and a staged maintenance approach about 20 years to minimize student disruption. The presentation noted none of the presented costs included operational savings or routine maintenance over time, though staff said replacement would likely bring larger short-term operational savings.

The district also outlined a potential debt restructuring to move bonds and spread payments into later years. Finance staff presented an illustrative restructuring that would shift principal-and-interest payments outward beginning around 2031–2032. The 16-year restructuring example showed an added nominal cost of about $4,400,000 (of which roughly $100,000 would be bond issuance fees), with the net present value discounted back to 2026–27 shown as roughly $413,000 under the presentation’s assumptions.

Staff said the restructuring cost was weighed against projected construction inflation: using a conservative 3% construction inflation assumption, waiting three years could increase a replacement cost by an estimated $11,000,000; the restructuring cost was presented as lower than that potential increase. Officials cautioned the presentation did not attempt to quantify educational impacts of building earlier versus later.

On local-tax impacts, staff said the conservative plan shown in the slides would require generating roughly $426,000 in additional revenue, which the district estimated would equal about $42 per year for the “average homeowner” for nine years. The presentation said the average assessed values used in that calculation were about $265,000 in Chester County and $450,000 in Delaware County (assessed values, not market values).

Board members asked clarifying questions about coordinating other campus projects—such as high-school parking and tennis-court work—with a middle-school replacement or renovation; district staff recommended coordinating large site work when possible. Officials also described the restructuring window: the district could effect the restructure as early as September 2026 under the timeline shown.

The board emphasized the information would continue to evolve and that no final decision had been made. Staff said FAQs and updated slides have been posted to the district website and that the board will consider the full set of tradeoffs before any formal vote.

For now, the presentation and the public discussion serve as a planning step; no formal bond issuance or construction contract was approved at the Jan. 13 work session.