Lynn banking on MSBA feasibility study plan to repair Marshall, other buildings

Lynn Public School officials should find out if plans to renovate one or more of the city’s middle schools are still on track when the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) announces which projects are in line for feasibility studies at its board meeting this morning.The feasibility study is one of the first steps toward potential funding for school renovations and repairs under the MSBA’s new program, a five-year capitol pipeline development process.School districts were asked to submit statements of interest for renovation projects by July of this year, and based on those statements the MSBA will determine who will receive the feasibility study. That study does not guarantee grant money for any school, but is simply the next step in approving the proposal.Lynn Public Schools filed statements of interest for five schools in need of capital repair – Breed Middle School, Pickering Middle School, Ford K-8 School, Thurgood Marshall Middle School and the Fecteau-Leary Building, which houses the Career Development Center and the Classical Freshmen Academy.Superintendent Nicholas Kostan said Marshall is the district’s top priority, and would be first in line for a feasibility study if the MSBA feels it is necessary.After renovations to all three high schools at the start of the decade, Kostan said the district is focused on securing funding to update and renovate all of the city’s middle schools, but due to funding limitations, the MSBA asked the district to choose which of those schools is its top priority.”We filed statements of interest on all of our middle schools, but they asked us to give them one top priority school,” Kostan said. “So we polled the School Committee and the City Council and it was pretty much unanimous that the Marshall was in need of the most attention.”Kostan said the building’s needs cover a wide variety of structural repairs, along with individual concerns such as roofing, new doors and new heating equipment – as do all of the schools on the list.”We feel strongly that all of our middle schools are priorities,” he said. We want to get the middle schools in shape, but they did ask us to prioritize one and we chose the Marshall.”The MSBA’s financing plan will provide $2.5 billion to be distributed in school repairs over the next five fiscal years. These funds are in addition to over $14 billion that the Commonwealth has already expended on local school construction since 1990.The 423 statements of interest from 162 districts received by the MSBA describe a variety of facility problems, ranging from leaky roofs, to overcrowded classrooms, to structural concerns.New grants for project approvals by the MSBA cannot exceed $500 million annually, thus the authority needs to prioritize its list before any final decisions are made.”I am pleased to see the level of interest in the new, reformed school building grant program that begins this year after a four year moratorium on state-funded school building grants,” said Katherine Craven, MSBA executive director. “Our continuing commitment is to work with school districts to fund equitable, affordable solutions to local school building problems while keeping within our budget and starting with the neediest and most urgent school projects first.”Other area schools that have filed statements of interest with the MSBA include Peabody’s Higgins Middle School and Center School, Salem High School, Saugus High School, Belmonte Saugus Middle School, Lynnhurst Elementary School, Revere’s Paul Revere and William McKinley schools and Marblehead’s Village, Glover, LH Coffin, Elbridge Gerry and Dr. Samuel Eveleth schools.The authority developed four basic criteria for determining the urgency of the repair project, first and foremost asking if the facility is structurally sound or risking the safety of students.A situation is also considered urgent if there is severe existing overcrowding or projected overcrowding, and whether the facility is impacting the education of stud