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Steamboat Springs — Attorneys for the Steamboat Springs School Board and Steamboat 700 have reached an agreement to share the costs to build a new school needed as a result of the development west of city limits and to expand the district's high school.

School Board members will decide whether to approve the "covenant" agreement when they meet at 6 p.m. today in rooms 113 and 114 of Centennial Hall on 10th Street.

The board approved an agreement with developers Aug. 24 after removing the word "tentative."

It stipulated Steamboat 700 would pay 47.2 percent of the $30 million cost, in today's dollars, to construct a 600-student kindergarten to eighth-grade school and a 17,000-square-foot expansion of the high school.

However, Superintendent Shalee Cunningham has said attorneys for the school district advised that board members shouldn't have approved the agreement after removing the word "tentative" and had to vote again.

But Cunningham said the time between the last approval and today's meeting allowed attorneys for both sides to draft the "covenant" agreement, the binding legal document between both parties. She said the "tentative" agreement highlighted the key points and that the terms in both agreements were the same.

According to the proposed agreement, Steamboat 700 would pay for its portion of the project by dedicating a half percent real estate transfer fee to the district. That would be paid until the developer's share of the cost is met, regardless of how long it takes.

The agreement also stipulated that the district would not be responsible for the costs associated with an off-site pedestrian underpass at Routt County Road 42. Title companies would collect the real estate transfer fees and distribute them to the school district, which would deposit them in a separate account that would be tracked and reconciled annually.

Cunningham has said construction of the school depends on when the district would put a general obligation bond on a ballot and decide to build. But, she added, demand for the new school would be immediate with the development of Steamboat 700.

Steamboat 700 is a proposed development seeking annexation to construct about 2,000 homes and 380,000 square feet of retail space on 487 acres just west of Steamboat. It would add an estimated 283 students in kindergarten to eighth grade and 124 high school students to the district.