Marblehead debates model school versus custom design for Glover

MARBLEHEAD – The Glover School Building Committee wants to stay with the custom school design it has been developing for nearly a year – but committee members want JCJ Architecture to design that school closer to its Model School design cost.Members spent about an hour and a half Wednesday night discussing the Model School program the Massachusetts School Building Authority has started for elementary schools after a site visit to a Model School in Groton, Conn. last week and Monday evening presentations by the architectural firms that designed the MSBA’s four model schools, including JCJ.Committee Chairman Patricia Blackmer, Glover Principal Mary Devlin and committee members Diane Gora and Frances Sheridan were enthusiastic about the Groton school.”Overall we were pleased,” Gora said. Sheridan, a former teacher, was enthusiastic about the large windows and the light they admitted. Devlin prepared a sheet detailing the needs she would like to see addressed if the model school were adapted for Marblehead.JCJ architect Gregory Smolley faced some strict questions about the design alterations, however, because the custom school features additional special education space and a larger gym compared to the JCJ models.When Smolley warned the committee that adding space to the model design would increase costs several members began pushing for figures.Smolley provided them with a sheet that showed a cost of $298 per square foot for the Marblehead custom design, amounting to a total of $28.8 million, and a square-foot cost of $240 per square foot for the average model school.Members spent considerable time discussing cost before asking JCJ to provide them with revised and updated figures, with one result: “We want to have our design at the new price,” Blackmer told the architect.Owners Project Manager Patrick Saitta said the custom plan could be done cheaper.Committee members voted to recommend to the School Committee that the feasibility study go forward with the custom design option, provided that it is cost neutral – in other words that it can be done at the Model School cost or close to it. Smolley and Saitta said they would send the committee updated figures before the next meeting.