Marshall plans include rooftop rec area

LYNN – Their fellow students dash out to school yards to play, but Marshall Middle School students will climb stairwells and run out onto a rooftop turf area in their new school.Designs for the proposed Brookline Street school call for a 24,000 square foot artificial turf play space surrounded by high screens to sit on top of the school?s cafeteria and gymnasium wing.Architect Gene Raymond told school and city officials on Tuesday that space limitations posed by the school?s East Lynn site prompted designers to put the play space atop the school wing near the Chatham Street end of the new school.?It looks great; it?s very exciting,” School Superintendent Catherine Latham told Raymond after viewing plans for the rooftop open space and other school designs Tuesday.Construction is scheduled to start in 2014 and the new Marshall will open in September 2016. School officials plan to use the existing school as “swing space” initially for Pickering Middle School students as plans progress to replace Pickering.School Committee members and City Councilors have signed off on building the new Marshall on empty land between Chatham and Empire Street bordered by Brookline Street on one side and the commuter rail tracks on the other.Most schools, including the existing Marshall on Porter Street, are surrounded by asphalt school yards partly reserved for parking. The new Marshall?s parking spaces are grouped on one side of the school near Empire Street next to the building wing that includes the first-floor library and offices, and second, third and fourth floor classrooms and activity rooms.The school?s middle section includes an entrance way connected with the Empire Street wing and ground-floor arts, technology and music rooms. Classrooms are also located on the middle section?s upper floors.Designs for the school?s Chatham Street wing show a small stage separating the first-floor cafeteria from the gymnasium with its bleacher seating for 1,200 and locker rooms. Raymond said access to the rooftop play area will be from the middle section?s third floor or from stairs leading up from the locker rooms.He said the cafeteria and gym can be sealed off from the school?s classroom section after school hours to allow community events to be held in the school?s large spaces without people wandering into the academic areas.Raymond said builders will use special noise-dampening material in constructing walls and windows facing the train tracks.