LEWISTON — Workers are putting the finishing touches on a $2.75 million expansion at the McMahon Elementary School.

The new wing will have five new classrooms, three auxiliary rooms and a library. The project is now 85 percent complete, the Lewiston School Committee was told Monday night.

When McMahon students return from their April vacation, they won’t have to go outside into a portable classroom to check a book out of the library. The new library will be inside the school.

The English Language Learner and Title I students will also get inside space instead of portable classrooms.

“All those services will come into the building,” Lewiston Superintendent Bill Webster said. “It brings the teaching staff into the building and makes them more a part of the team.”

There will also be a new prekindergarten classroom, a new kindergarten classroom, and improved art, music rooms and computer lab.

The goal, Business Manager Dean Flanagin said, is to improve the school so it has some of the same amenities as the city’s newer schools. It also needed to accommodate a growing student population, especially in the early grades.

There are now 500 students at McMahon. This fall the student population is expected to be 526.

Showing off a slide show of the new library, Facilities Director Joe Perryman said the new library is a space with lots of natural light from big, inviting windows. On the exterior of the building outside the library there’ll be a brick clock tower adjacent to the main entrance.

The outside area will feature cobblestone, granite benches and grass, creating an inviting entrance. Inside the library, the clock tower provides an alcove with circular benches.

“The work is going well. Everybody over there is very excited,” Perryman said.

Future $2.8 million improvements planned for McMahon would add a new gymnasium with a stage, a larger music room and storage space, Flanagin told committee members.

The gym and new classrooms are being paid for by the Qualified School Construction Bonds approved by city officials in 2009.

— Bonnie Washuk