Marblehead school architects unveil design changes

MARBLEHEAD – The Glover School Committee has recommended an appropriation of $25.45 million to build a new 425-student elementary school at the Glover School site on Maple Street.Greg Smolley and Jim LaPasta of JCJ Architects, the designers of the new school building, started the meeting off by showing the committee some changes they made in the $26 million design they discussed Dec. 1.?You won?t see a lot of change because much of what we?ve done is to take the building?s footprint and make it fit the site better,” LaPasta said. He noted that the building, once pegged at 70,000 square feet, has been reduced by 750 square feet and one notable change is in the façade. The building will continue to have a brick exterior on the sides facing the streets but it will have concrete blocks on the side facing the courtyard.The changes reduced the cost to $25.9 million, but since the town has already spent $450,000 on design the actual appropriation will be $25.45 million.With 40 percent reimbursement from the Massachusetts School Building Authority the actual cost to Marblehead is estimated at $15.25 million.The proposed building will replace the two Glover buildings and the Eveleth School.Committee Chairman Patricia Blackmer expressed her appreciation to the architects for “scaling back on things that don?t impact educational programs.”The Glover Committee was expected to make a report to the School Committee this morning and will hold its first public forum on the project Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in the Glover School gym.Committee member Dick Nohelty saw that forum as the beginning of a dialogue with the town.?Tuesday will be the first in a series, an on-going dynamic process,” Nohelty said. “It should be us facilitating questions, they ask us questions, we answer them and get the answers out to the public. The less absolute answers we have the better.””