PHOTO BY PAULA MULLER
Shown is a site plan for the proposed Breed’s Pond Reservoir location of a new Pickering Middle School.
By THOR JOURGENSEN
LYNN — Two schools sharing a gymnasium and cafeteria and built off Parkland Avenue may be the best way for the city to corral a rising middle school enrollment tide.
Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy said the two-schools-in-one concept could be included in a submission to the Massachusetts School Building Authority next week. The proposal will outline plans and cost estimates for new middle schools capable of handling an anticipated 1,660-student increase in middle school-age students.
The city opened a new Marshall Middle School in April but aging Pickering Middle School needs to be replaced with a modern building or buildings large enough to handle increasing middle school enrollment.
Earlier this year, the mayor said she favored two new schools over one large school.
“We don’t want middle school students in such a large environment when they need individual instruction at that age,” Kennedy said this week.
The mayor and Michael Donovan, the city’s Inspectional Services director, said cost analysis say building two new middle schools on separate sites is too expensive.
“It puts us at a spot uncomfortably close to what we can’t afford,” he said.
Building costs can be reduced, Kennedy said, by building one building on a single site with separate schools located in wings flanking a core building with shared facilities, including a cafeteria and gymnasium.
“I don’t honestly see how we pay for two separate schools on two separate campuses,” she said.
Donovan said a middle school campus including two schools flanking a common core would total size-wise about 250,000 square feet. By contrast, English High School is about 235,000 square feet in size and the new Marshall is 181,000 square feet.
City planners are examining the existing Pickering site and nearby Magnolia Playground and McManus Field on Commercial Street as possible sites. But Kennedy considers a proposed site off Parkland Avenue near Breeds Pond as the “only viable site” for a shared school.
Ward 1 City Councilor Wayne Lozzi said traffic concerns raised by residents living near the Parkland site must be balanced against the need for new middle schools. He said Averill Street and Shoemaker Road residents don’t want their quiet streets filled with school traffic.
Parkland Road resident and Lynn native Christina Fonseca said it doesn’t make sense to build a school in the wetlands near her home.
“I’ll go to City Hall and try to fight it,” she said. “I think it’s going to cause a lot of problems.”
Her mother, Luise Fonseca, and neighbor Angelo Codispoti said fast-moving traffic on Parkland and afternoon congestion on the busy street will worsen if a new school is built off Parkland.
Lozzi said he is taking a “wait and see” attitude toward the Pickering planning process and said he will attend all public hearings on new middle schools.
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
