Construction bids for a $28 million elementary school in Buxton will likely go out this month, with work targeted to begin in the spring. The new school is expected to open in September 2010.

Plans for the Buxton Center school, which would be built to accommodate 850 children in Kindergarten-Grade 5, are under review by the Buxton Planning Board. The school will be constructed on 21 acres adjacent to the Jewett and Hanson schools.

Buxton ranked second on a state list for a new school. Cindy Hazelton, chairwoman of the School Administrative District 6 board of directors, said enrollment is projected to increase by 33 percent over the next decade in Buxton.

“This school will handle that,” she said.

The school requires approval by the town’s Planning Board, which is scheduled to review the plans at 7 p.m. on Monday in town hall. Jean Harmon, chairwoman of the board of selectmen and a member of the school’s building committee, expects much discussion to center on safety measures.

Harmon said the the entrance is under review because of its location on a hill. A perimeter road is being questioned as to whether its width would accommodate emergency vehicles.

In a May referendum, voters in the school district’s five towns, which include Frye Island, Hollis, Limington and Standish, approved the $26.7 million for the new school. They also favored spending another $1.3 million of local money for a fitness room and full-size gym. Hazelton said the gym would have 900 seats.

The new school will consolidate Buxton’s four aging elementary schools into one. The school district has plans to shift the Eliza Libby, Jack Memorial and Frank Jewett schools to other uses.

Hazelton said school officials would begin talks this winter with the town about the Hanson School, which has a gym. It once served as Buxton’s high school and later as a junior high school. Hazelton said the future of the nearly century-old Hanson School is undetermined.

Harmon said the town’s voters would have to authorize accepting return of the building from SAD 6, and she believes the town is divided. Harmon said it would be an expense to maintain and make handicap accessible, but favors saving the building. “I love that building,” Harmon said.

Selectman Linda Pulsoni, who attended it as a junior high school, said Friday that a reuse of the building by the town probably would be impractical. Citing rising maintenance costs and the economy, Pulsoni said her biggest concern is with the tax impact maintaining the building could have on the town’s residents.

The Hanson School was built in 1913 and rebuilt after a fire in 1930. An addition was constructed in 1952.