An estimated $15 million construction project in Palmerton Area School District cleared a critical regulatory milestone this month, with the Lower Towamensing Township Planning Commission recommending preliminary and final conditional approval.

The district is now on the agenda for the board of supervisors meeting April 7 for final authorization and formal bids are expected to open within days.

Business Manager Ryan Kish told the board Tuesday night that the early contractor response has been encouraging.

“Our pre-bid meeting on March 5 saw a strong turnout of about 20 contractors,” Kish said. “We are optimistic this high level of interest will result in competitive, favorable bids when we open the formal submissions in about three days.”

The project has two components: a two-story addition to Palmerton Area High School featuring a secured entrance, five new teaching spaces and renovated administrative offices; and a separate, 11,000-square-foot district administration building to be constructed on the lawn west of the high school gymnasium.

To keep options open heading into bid day, the board voted unanimously March 4 to add a last-minute option — Alternate Seven — that would allow directors to strip the administration building from the final contract entirely.

Director Earl Paules questioned whether the ground to the west side of the property could support a new administration building at all.

“Apparently that ground over there is not really suitable to build on at all,” Paules said at a meeting earlier this year. “We’re going to have to spend more money just on foundation to be able to put a building on top, and not a very big building by the way. It’s a very small building.”

Paules has been the administration building’s most vocal critic on the board, arguing repeatedly that the estimated $7 million structure would serve only 13 employees while burdening the district with long-term operating costs at a time of fiscal strain.

Proponents of the administration building have pushed back on that framing. Director MaryJo King argued the multipurpose space would serve far more than its permanent occupants.

“Those rooms are used for training, for professional development days, for interviews, any type of meeting, negotiations,” King said earlier this year. “It helps more than just 13 people.”

District administrators and staff who previously worked on the third floor of the Parkside Education Center have been working out of temporary leased space at 3295 Forest Inn Road in Lower Towamensing Township since May 2025 at a cost of $3,800 per month while the project is in its planning phase.

A vote to award or reject bids on the project could come in April according to district officials.