BUFFALO TWP — The Freeport School Board will vote Aug. 22 on a $29.2 million middle school building proposed to replace its 90-year-old junior high school. If approved, construction could be completed by September 2015.

The meeting will be at 7 p.m.

The 110,000 square-foot building proposal was presented at a public hearing Wednesday night. The new building would house the sixth, seventh and eighth grades on Freeport’s Buffalo Township campus.

“This is the plan that made sense academically and made sense financially,” said Mark Shoaf, board president.

Financially, the district would benefit from low interest rates and a state reimbursement plan for new school construction which might return up to $4.3 million to the district.

The district’s plan must be submitted to the state Department of Education by Oct. 1 to take advantage of the reimbursement. After that date, a reimbursement moratoriumn will be in effect.

Two Freeport school buildings, the junior high school and the kindergarten center, would be closed with the new building.

“This would be a huge hit to the borough,” said Richard Hill, Freeport borough treasurer.

In addition, the fate of the two buildings is not known.

“I’d hate to see the buildings just sit there,” said Jim Swartz, Freeport mayor. “Are they going to keep them, tear them down? They said they’d give them to us but we can’t afford to keep them.”