The Gorham Town Council voted unanimously Tuesday to put a bond for a new elementary school in front of Gorham voters on Tuesday, Sept. 16.

The bond would be for $25.8 million, 90 percent of which would be picked up by the state, leaving $2.5 million to be raised from local taxes. The new elementary school would replace the White Rock School, a plan that began in 1999. The new school would be built on the Stevens farm property on Route 237, less than a mile northwest of the intersection of routes 237 and 202.

The Town Council earlier this month delayed setting the date for the referendum because an official presentation on the scope, cost and design of the project had not been made to the panel.

The 26-acre Stevens property was purchased nearly two years after a search for land began. The search included one seven-figure deal that didn’t go through, a glance at town-owned property closer to the center of Gorham, and finally a deal with the Stevens family for $285,000.

“If they had not wished to be co-operative, this would not have happened,” Gorham Town Council Chariman Burleigh Loveitt said about the Stevens family and the property secured.

The new school will include all the latest in energy efficiency, including geothermal heating, solar hot water panels and auto-dimming lights.

“Predominantly, this building will be in cooling mode because it will be so well insulated,” said Lyndon Kech, a principal at Portland Design Team, the firm leading the project.

The school will have a capacity for 550 students in 82,000 square feet of space.

“It’s almost seven times larger than the existing White Rock school,” said Kech.

The project includes a few pieces that will be at the town’s expense, including sloped metal roofing, extra parking and three athletic fields more than the one field the state will pay for.

The impact on the tax rate, based on current projections, would be 5 cents in 2010, 20 cents in 2011, then slowly decreasing each year after that. The average owner of a $200,000 home would pay about $10 for the school in the first year, and $40 the next.

“We think it’s a good deal for the town,” Gorham School Superintendent Ted Sharpe told councilors Tuesday.

The project, if approved, would relieve the overcrowding at all the elementary schools. There would be three K-5 neighborhood schools, rather than the two K-2 schools and one Grades 3-5 school, as is currently the case. The project would go through the final design stage this winter, go out to bid in May, and be open in 2011.