An elementary school project in Lehighton Area School District is moving forward following a vote Monday that sets the table for it to go to bid later this month.

By a 6-3 vote, Lehighton’s school board approved PlanCon part F, advancing a proposed new K-5 primary elementary center in the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s reimbursement approval process.Board members Marianne Dwyer, Richard Beltz and Byron Arner, who have supported repairing and renovating Lehighton’s four existing elementary schools, voted against the resolution.Mark Barnhardt, of the EI Associates architectural firm, said Monday construction drawings for the new school are complete and Quandel, the district’s construction management group, has reviewed 90 percent of the plans.The project will go out for bid May 23, according to a district timeline.During a presentation to the school board, Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver said the building has increased in size from an original 145,000 square feet to 167,000 square feet.“Eventually we’d like to get it down to around 161,000 square feet,” he said. “We want to keep the classrooms at 900 square feet.”EI Associates is looking at tightening up the stairwells and some other measures to cutback square footage without sacrificing the look or layout of the building, Barnhardt added.“Simply adjusting the grade of the building keeps the district from having to bring in more fill and results in a cost saving,” said Karl Kauffman, project manager with Quandel.Lehighton also plans on listing several items as alternates when the project goes to bid such as playground equipment, bleachers behind the baskets in the gymnasium, and different types of flooring. It is also looking at having district staff do the final cleaning following construction instead of the general contractor.“Sometimes with alternates, a contractor will bid it low to try and gain an advantage in a competitive bidding process,” Cleaver said. “We were fortunate in the stadium project to get a track resurfacing for $200.”Kauffman said he is using $200 per square foot as a benchmark when planning cost estimates.“Getting to 161,000 square feet will get us right around that $32.5 million price tag we’ve been shooting for,” he said.The building would be set up with the K-2 primary classrooms on one end of the building and the 3-5 elementary classrooms on the other side. Core areas would be centrally located.The gymnasium, stage and cafeteria would be back-to-back-to-back in the school.Top tier seating in the gymnasium could be walled off to become two large group instruction rooms.Four locker rooms would be included, which would allow the district to host playoff basketball doubleheaders.Bids for the school construction would be opened June 21 if the timeline holds.Contracts would be awarded July 11.