New London — The school district is considering the creation of one of the state’s largest public school campuses at the current site of New London High School.

The idea is just one of several options the district is mulling over as it absorbs the impact of losing a partnership with the Garde Arts Center and, along with it, a downtown campus for a performing and visual arts program. The result is the potential loss of $31 million in state funds associated with the Garde project and skyrocketing cost estimates for one of the two campuses where the district intended to build two schools for grades 6 through 12.

The centerpiece for the future all-magnet school district always has been two schools with magnet pathways fed with students from the magnet elementary schools. One grades 6-12 school, the north campus, would be located at New London High School, while the south campus would be built at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School.

Splitting the four pathways equally between the two schools now seems unlikely as new projected cost estimates from the Capitol Region Education Council show the south campus price tag jumping from $49 million to $96 million.

The district has until Nov. 1 to submit a plan to the state Department of Administrative Services for the south campus or risk losing a spot on the school construction priority list with the General Assembly. The previously submitted plan was dropped from the state legislature’s priority list last year because it was not “shovel-ready,” legislators said.

“We have to be in a position to tell the state about what our position is on Bennie Dover,” Superintendent Manuel Rivera said.

Rivera, who inherited the overall plan when he was hired as superintendent in 2015, said the major hurdle remains the costs.

“The issue is being able to complete the project within the existing dollars. The only possible way to do that is to pursue a single campus,” he said.

In 2014, under a plan developed by state-appointed Special Master Steven J. Adamowski, city residents approved a school construction bond authorization for up to $165 million for a $98 million north campus and a $48 million south campus. At an 80 percent reimbursement rate, the city’s cost was expected to be about $33 million.

At the time, Adamowski conceived of a partnership not only with the Garde Arts Center but with the Interdistrict School for Arts and Communication (ISAAC) for the middle and high school levels of its planned visual and performing arts magnet pathway. About 600 students were associated with that program.

The partnerships never materialized and the result is a reshuffling of the locations of the four magnet pathways — science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), language and culture, visual and performing arts and leadership. Associated with the placement of the pathways is the state requirements on the percentages of out-of-district students that trigger an increased amount of state funding.

Diana McNeil, a senior project manager for the Capitol Region Education Council, presented new estimates last week based on a larger student body and escalating construction costs at the south campus. With the option to locate two magnet pathways at each campus, McNeil’s estimates shows costs jumping from $49 million to $96 million at the south campus, where the language and culture and leadership pathways would be located.

Cost estimates for the north campus, which could drop, are not yet available.

Not only would that cost increase need City Council approval and possibly lead to a new referendum vote, but its future approval by the state legislature is unclear considering the state’s projected budget deficit.

CREC has laid out four different options, all with their own challenges. One of the options locates three pathways at the north campus and one at the south campus. Another has the district dropping one of the magnet pathways.

School officials, however, are concerned not only about costs but about any alterations that significantly would delay the overall construction schedule.

Rivera introduced the option of the unified campus at last week’s School Building and Maintenance Committee meeting and asked CREC to come back on Friday with a feasibility study.

School Building and Maintenance Committee Chairman John Satti said the district is in a tough position but hopes the committee will have enough information to take a vote on Friday. He said he didn’t think taxpayers would get behind any major increases in funding for the schools, so a plan that sticks within the overall $165 million figure approved at referendum is the best-case scenario.

Even attempting to use $31 million in state funds associated with the Garde Arts project might be a hard sell, Satti said, since the outcome likely would be an 80 percent reimbursement and a more than $6 million cost to the city.

Rivera said he awaits updated cost estimates from CREC on some of the options, but envisions efficiencies by locating all schools on one campus.

Kate McCoy, the school district’s executive director of strategic planning, said if the concept of a unified campus is approved, what will follow is thoughtful discussion and planning to create a campus where smaller learning communities associated with each individual pathway can thrive.

The School Building and Maintenance Committee meets at 9 a.m. Friday at Central Office.

g.smith@theday.com