Officials at a school for autistic children plan to move the institution from Woburn to Andover in about two months, capping a three-year journey fraught with development obstacles and cost overruns.
Melmark New England plans to install a septic system rather than hook into a town sewer line, an issue that had complicated the $4.4 million renovation of the former Christian Formation Center on River Road in Andover.
School officials intend to continue discussions with the Andover Board of Selectmen about connecting to the sewer system sometime in the future, said chief operating officer Peter Troy. He said the septic system was the best choice, despite the cost, because the board turned down an intermunicipal agreement with Tewksbury and Lowell that would have paved the way for the sewer-system hookup. Voters at a previous Andover Town Meeting gave the sewer tie-in their approval.
Facing their own deadlines and goals to better serve students, school officials pursued the septic system alternative in the plans they filed in the spring.
“We’re hoping to be in the building by November,” Troy said.
Installing the septic system adds at least $150,000 to the project cost, according to Troy’s estimate, making the already difficult task of private fund-raising that much tougher. The school raised $145,000 with a golf tournament and benefit last month at the Andover Country Club, and it continues to seek sponsorships.
The renovation also includes a fire-sprinkler system, a new heating and ventilation system, and construction of classrooms. The 66,000-square-foot building is at 459 River Road, not far from Interstate 93 in the northwestern corner of Andover.
The Planning Board approved the site plan in June after Melmark New England chose to seek the septic system, at least as a short-term solution. The intermunicipal agreement involved the other two communities because the tie-in would have connected to Tewksbury’s sewer system, which pumps sewage to Lowell for treatment at its waste-water-treatment plant. Litigation involving a different developer on River Road — unrelated to Melmark — also influenced the school’s project timetable.
“It took on a life of its own when the utilities came into play,” said Paul Materazzo, Andover’s director of planning.
The private, nonprofit school, currently located in an office park in Woburn, operates year-round with an enrollment of 77. The move to Andover will allow for an enrollment of about 108.
An additional benefit is that children will be in a campus setting, complete with an outdoor playground, according to school officials.
Melmark New England was established in 1998. In addition to its students, whose ages range from 4 to 21, the school performs consultations with local public schools. Troy estimated 300 more children are served in their public schools, which span the Merrimack Valley.
Melmark New England serves students from two dozen communities and provides outreach to an additional 40 communities, said Rita Gardner, the school’s executive director.
The recent golf outing and reception, at which political heavyweights were well in attendance, helped raise money as well as public awareness. “Autism is a huge public health issue at this point,” Gardner said.
Autism, a complex developmental disability, is diagnosed in one in 166 people, according to Autism Speaks, a group founded to help find a cure. That incidence rate makes it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined.
The rate is a tenfold increase over the past 20 years, said state Representative Barbara A. L’Italien , an Andover Democrat. In Massachusetts, she said, the conservative estimate is that 10,000 children have autism.
L’Italien has added $4 million to the state budget in the past two years to establish the state’s first division of autism. The goals are to help identify and educate children with autism, and to prevent the affliction. In each of the past two years, $200,000 has been earmarked for Melmark New England to allow the school’s experts to help educators in public schools.
L’Italien said: “I would put Melmark in the vanguard of what is being done for children with autism in Massachusetts.”
