After months of planning, work sessions and meetings with the school board officials and the public, a final design for the new Tucumcari High School has been selected, said Tucumcari Schools Superintendent Aaron McKinney.

“It has been a long hard three months,” McKinney said. “We have had the teachers, school board and community give their input on the design of the school and we finally got one that everybody agrees on.”

The project, designed by Greer Stafford SJCF Architecture firm of Albuquerque, is estimated to cost $21 million and will be completed in three phases, McKinney said.

Phase one of construction on the new Tucumcari High School is projected to begin in late October, McKinney said.

The new high school will include renovated and newly constructed spaces on the same site as the current high school.

“It is a huge relief to be at the stage of the project that we are at now,” McKinney said. “Having the design process done, we can now focus on construction of the new high school.”

The next step for the project is to hire a contractor and the school will be using a new process to choose the contractor McKinney said.

The contractor will be evaluated and graded on a point system by a committee. The committee will be made up of  members which could include, the superintendent, a school board member, a represenatice of the architectural design firm, a Tucumcari Schools staff member, a purchasing agent and a member of the New Mexico Public School Facilities Authority, McKinney said.

“The committee will ensure that a good contractor is picked for quality work,” McKinney said.