ORANGE — The town’s elementary school project is a go after residents voted more than 2 to 1 on Monday in favoring of ratifying a Proposition 2½ debt exclusion they passed at the Annual Town Meeting last week.

According to results from Town Clerk Nancy Blackmer, 598 people voted in favor of ratification while 260 opposed it. Voting was held in Ralph C. Mahar Regional School’s Grzesik-Bixby Gymnasium from noon to 7 p.m.

The plan is to build a three-story, roughly 50,000-square-foot addition onto Fisher Hill Elementary School and demolish Dexter Park Innovation School, moving all students into the expanded and renovated building, which is expected to serve the town’s educational needs for at least 50 years.

“This begins the project,” Orange School Building Committee Chairman Bruce Scherer said of the ratification. “This is where the rubber meets the road.”

Dexter Park was built in 1951 and the Massachusetts School Building Authority, a quasi-independent government authority, designated it a “Category 4” school, its lowest rating, in 2006. Voters approved funding a feasibility study in 2018 to study the Dexter Park issue and devise repair or replacement options.

The work is projected to cost a total of $57.6 million, with a $45.7 million construction cost. Orange will contribute $23 million, to be raised through the debt exclusion. The Massachusetts School Building Authority, which Scherer said gets its money through sales tax, will cover 80 percent of the project’s eligible costs.

Scherer said Raymond Design Associates is handling the project “from soup to nuts, literally everything from drainage to construction of the building … to computers that are going to be in there, furniture.”

“You’re not just building a building, you’re building a school,” he said.

Scherer explained there is unlikely to be any major work until the spring, and the project is expected to last two and a half years, running through two summers.

Scherer also expressed his gratitude to the community, noting the Annual Town Meeting vote was adopted by a 300 to 16 vote. Residents also agreed to remove asbestos from Dexter Park and repair a deteriorating concrete floor there. This will serve as a remedy for the remaining three to five years the building is expected to be used.

“I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep,” Scherer said. “Last night, there was too much champagne to constitute a good night’s sleep.”

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.