SWAMPSCOTT — The Select Board wants to ensure that resident voices are accounted for in determining the future of the Hadley School.
The town put out a call for volunteers Tuesday to serve on a new committee which will study the possibility of reusing the existing Hadley School building for public, civic, commercial and affordable housing.
Select Board Chairman Peter Spellios expressed hope that this process of redeveloping the Hadley School would go more smoothly than the handling of other town properties.
“The town of Swampscott has a very poor track record on the reuse of vacant school buildings,” said Spellios, citing an instance in which the former middle school on Greenwood Avenue remained vacant for years before being turned into residential housing amidst community objections.
“The goal is really to have citizens get together in public forums to begin the process of discussing how we can envision the future of the Hadley School. To make sure that, in the event that the school department does deem that property surplus, we would have broader buy-in to put this property to use for the citizens of Swampscott.”
The committee, created at the November Special Town Meeting, is instructed to avoid using the Hadley site for market rate, or luxury housing.
According to Spellios, the Select Board hopes the original Hadley School building can be preserved “to the extent that it is possible.”
This reuse of the Hadley School would only take place only in the event that a new district-wide elementary school is built at the location of the current Stanley Elementary School and that the Hadley Elementary School is deemed excess by the Swampscott School Department.
The Swampscott School Building Committee (SBC) voted Oct. 12 to choose the Stanley school building as the site of a new district-wide school, leaving the fate of the Hadley school, which was also considered as a site for the new school building, up in the air.
One of the reasons some residents supported the Hadley site was their belief that, if chosen, the new Hadley school could be used as a public space.
At the time of the SBC vote, Swampscott resident Taryn Provencher was excited about the potential of using the Hadley site as a public space.
“They said that they could allow the gym to be closed off during off-school hours and that it could be for community use. And they also said the same for the cafe,” she said. “And that they could have a stage off the back that they could use for jazz bands or family movie nights.”
The Hadley School Reuse Advisory Committee will be made up of 17 members, including four volunteers appointed by the Select Board, five members of the Town Meeting, and representatives from the various Swampscott committees.
The town encourages all residents to apply—especially those with a background in architecture, real estate development, finance, historic building preservation, structural engineering, community development, arts, marketing, graphic design, landscape design, or non-profit administration.
To be considered for appointment to the committee, the town asks residents to submit their name, address, phone number, and a brief paragraph describing their interest and any useful background information to Assistant Town Administrator Allie Fiske at [email protected] by 5 p.m. Monday, Dec. 14.
Guthrie Scrimgeour can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @g_scrimgeour.
