A proposed new school site is all but officially named.

Austin Public School board members passed a resolution Monday night calling for a special election, meaning voters will decide whether to grant the district $28.9 million in a bond referendum this November.

That $28.9 million price tag is the estimated amount for a new school to be built on Fellowship United Methodist Church property, on Seventh Street SE, just south of Ellis Middle School. While board members and Mark Stotts, the district’s finance and operations director, didn’t officially confirm the site as board approved, several board members expressed their approval of the site.

“I think we know what site we’re talking about,” Stotts said at the meeting, after clarifying that board members were calling for a special election.

The site is the most advantageous and the cheapest to build on, according to district officials. Utilities already exist there, and a school built next to the Ellis athletic fields means the two schools could share, if voters approve the referendum.

District officials say building a school on the church property would adequately separate the two schools, an issue that arose in April when teachers cautioned board members against building on Ellis land due to scheduling, traffic flow and emergency evacuation issues.

District officials have yet to officially name the church property as the site for the new grade 5-6 school, as they are still in negotiations with the church’s trustees. A land appraisal is being done while district officials are taking soil borings.

The call for a special election comes after more than a year’s worth of work due to a projected increase in enrollment in Austin, where as many as 400 more students could be in the district five years from now, and as many as 1,000 more by 2020. Seven out of eight district schools are either at or over capacity as well, according to a facilities study released last fall.

A community task force convened at the beginning of the year, bringing as many as 26 solutions to the table before deciding on a new grade 5-6 school, which would alleviate overcrowding at elementary schools as well as at Ellis.

One of the task force recommendations was to keep any facilities project under $30 million. A $20 million bond for renovations made to Austin High School runs out this year, meaning if the current bond referendum passes, property owners would deal with a collective $8.9 million increase to their taxes. If a bond referendum fails, property owners would have a collective $20 million decrease.

“The first $20 million would be what people are paying today,” Stotts said.

Stotts will present the district’s project proposal to the Minnesota Department of Education Friday. MDE officials have to give a review and comment on new schools, and the bond referendum would be issued only after a positive review from the state.

A government shutdown could impede the district’s progress on the bond referendum. State law mandates that a school district give about 74 days of notice to voters before a special election can take place, meaning MDE officials have to comment on the new school plan by mid-August so a bond referendum question can be placed on the ballot this November. If the government shuts down in July, that would delay an already overstretched department’s decision, according to Stotts.