Groton - Before Groton can move forward with building a middle school on the 35-acre Merritt property, it must come up with land of equal or greater value to swap with the state as restricted to open space.

The town manager and staff are working on a list of properties that could be offered in exchange for using the Merritt property. The list, expected to include town-owned and privately owned land, will be presented to the Town Council within the next few weeks.

Possibilities include a 5- to 6-acre wooded parcel on the other side of Fitch High School, the former Noank School property - which would remain town-owned but be restricted by deed - and the former Groton Heights School property, Town Manager Mark Oefinger recently told the council.

The town bought the Merritt property, a tract off Fort Hill Road next to Robert E. Fitch High School, after voters approved an $8 million bond referendum in 1988 to acquire land for open space. The property was one of six purchased at the time and cost $700,000. Groton later received an open space grant from the state that reimbursed 40 percent of the cost and limited its use.

Now the Board of Education wants to build a new middle school as close to Fitch High School as possible, and a task force looking at sites has zeroed in on the Merritt property. The other options presented to the School Facilities Initiative Task Force for building near the high school would cover the football field or the newly built baseball field. Both fields would be expensive to replace, consultants explained.

Town Councilor Genevieve Cerf, who attended a session where community members debated the future of Groton Public Schools, said she supports building one middle school in the center of town, so students don't spend hours on the bus and middle school students benefit from high school programs.

"My only problem with this plan - I do think it's a great plan - is having to use the Merritt property, because we are kind of breaking an old trust with the voters that we had bought this property for open space and recreation," Cerf said during a recent meeting. But a swap could work, so it's forgivable, she said.

Dennis Schain, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said the program that restricted the deeds in 1988 no longer exists, but has essentially become the open space program. The earlier restriction allowed some recreational use also, Schain said.

A separate proposal offered to the council recently would build recreational fields on the Merritt property.

But the school and recreation projects shouldn't be viewed as mutually exclusive, Oefinger said.

"At some point, collectively people have got to get on the same page," he said, after another councilor questioned whether one middle school is wise. "We're good at knocking each other down and then wondering why two years from now, or three years from now, why hasn't anything happened?"

The Town Council holds a joint meeting with the Board of Education at 5 p.m. Monday in the Town Hall Annex to discuss school facilities.

Groton officials met recently with representatives of DEEP about the process for releasing restrictions on the deed, Schain said. The town would have to offer an equal amount of property to restrict for open space, present the plan to the state and have the state review and approve it, Schain said.

The land could be divided among multiple parcels.

d.straszheim@theday.com

Twitter: @DStraszheim