Private school in Ulysses seeks expansion

Namaste Montessori School owner is seeking to expand the school’s campus at 1608 Trumansburg Rd. in the town of Ulysses, hoping to provide a larger indoor playspace and free up space in its current main buildings to expand its educational offerings.

The school, currently owned and operated by Bridgid Beames, spans two campuses: the primary site at 1608 Trumansburg Rd., which is home to primary education classrooms (18 months-6 years-old), and another at 1872 Trumansburg Rd., which hosts primary and elementary school classrooms and is known as the Jacksonville campus.

Beames told Tompkins Weekly the expansion would primarily move the primary school (ages 3-6) classroom from the Jacksonville campus to a new building at 1608 Trumansburg Rd., allowing Jacksonville to exclusively host the school’s elementary education. All of Namaste’s preschool offerings would be at the 1608 campus. The move, she noted, is in direct response to a need for childcare in the county.

Plans for said expansion were unveiled at the June 18 Town of Ulysses Planning Board meeting, presented by architect Michael Barnoski of Trade Design Build, an Ithaca-based firm. Barnoski is helping Beames go through the board’s site plan review process.

Phase one of the project will be on the west side of the 3.2 acre parcel: a building as well as new parking spaces and a drop-off area and bus stop. The building is meant to be all-electric.

“[Beames] contacted us for the design of a modest new building for the Montessori school on Route 96,” Barnoski noted. “We basically developed a site plan that looked to push this new building toward Route 96 to kind of shelter the site from the highway and create as much indoor play space as possible.”

Phase one could cost as much as $1.5 million, which Barnoski said will be paid for with grant funding the organization has applied for.

“We are going to balance simplicity and modesty with still making it fun and exciting. We have approached it with this take on a single-pole barn structure,” Barnoski said. “It provides a covered play space for children along the south side of the classroom building.”

Down the line, Barnoski said Beames plans to apply for further funding that would cover the costs of a second building — known as phase two of the project. That building would help move the elementary education portion of Namaste to 1608.

“That building would host the east side of the site and shelter the site from that end,” he added. 

The Jacksonville campus would then become a community center with the possibility to turn into a middle school far into the future.

Beames said both phases are a long shot.

“Phase one is a long shot with our grant,” Beames said. “[The grant] is $50 million [available], but only $12 million for upstate, which is Plattsburgh to Buffalo. The minimum ask is $500,000. It’s a long shot for us.” 

Barnoski said he is concerned about needing a stormwater pollution prevention plan (SWPPP), which he noted he would have to prepare. The SWPPP can cost between $10,000 and $15,000. He noted he would not want to see Beames spend that amount of money if she does not yet have grant funding in hand. News of a potential award may arrive in August.

Board members stressed to the applicants that they should focus on phase one of the project for now, especially given the elongated timeline Beames has for phase 2, which is around 5-10 years down the line.

“I would not be regulating some possible thing in 10 years,” said Board Chair Linda Liddle.

Barnoski said he will return with a formal site plan, including septic designs, in about a month.

The full discussion can be found here, starting around the 18-minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN17GHVj858

Namaste Montessori School is licensed by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services and affiliated with the International Montessori Council.Ulysses Connection appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com. Contact Eddie Velazquez at edvel37@gmail.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @ezvelazquez.

In brief:
Bids for the Ulysses Town Hall parking lot project will open on June 28 at 12:30 p.m. at the town hall at 10 Elm St. The town is searching firms that can help with engineering services for conceptual design, final design, construction, administration and observation. More details on the project and bidding can be found here: https://townofulyssesny.gov/__cms/docs/2024_06_14-RFQ-Town-Hall-Parking-Lot-Conceptual-and-Final-Design-and-Eng-Services_FINAL-w-appendices.pdf