SWAMPSCOTT — The town is seeking developers for the construction of a new, nearly $78 million, school building in town at the site of the old Stanley School building, which is being torn down.
The new three-story building will house students from each of the town’s elementary schools.
Demolition of the old school building began this month, and remains ongoing. Officials hope the work will be concluded by Oct. 15 with the bidding period closing soon after, on Oct. 20, allowing the town to give the go-ahead for a general contractor on Oct. 26.
From there, work will continue through the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, with the aim of opening its doors for the start of the 2024-25 school year.
The resulting school building will take up more than 150,000 square feet on Whitman Road, and the development will also include parking facilities, school and community play areas, a recreation field, and improvement areas with a town easement area within the adjacent Unitarian Universalist Church site. (The taking of the easement sparked a lawsuit from the church, alleging the town underpaid them.)
In all, the work is estimated to cost $77,905,401.
The town’s School Building Committee gave the go-ahead to open the bid at a meeting Sept. 13, with the bid opening the following day, on Sept. 14.
“It’s exciting to know that in two years we’re going to have another really fantastic school building,” said School Building Committee Chair Suzanne Wright.
The School Building Committee will next meet on Oct. 25 to review the bids and select a general contractor.
Officials said in March that the new school building will be fully geothermal and self-sufficient. It will be fully electric with one oil tank for generators.
The building will be placed on the south side of the lot with its back against Ewing Woods, which students will be able to see from the cafeteria. All of the classrooms face either south or north.
The architectural team chose warm materials for the building and three colors (yellow, blue and green) that distinguish the lower school, library and upper school to reference the natural resources of the town, such as beach sand, the ocean, and the woods.
At the front of the lot on the right, there will be a fenced grass play field, which might be naturally irrigated, along with a big, fenced playground.
Traffic will flow from Whitman Road up to the school, where it will split into directions — to the lower school drop-off area and around the parking lot back onto Whitman Road, and to the upper school drop-off area with an exit through the Unitarian Universalist Church.
With the Stanley School shuttered, kindergartners will be attending class in the library of the Hadley Elementary School. The library space is divided into two new classrooms, and the town has an agreement with the YMCA to use a space in their building as a classroom for first through fourth-grade classes.
The classroom replacements will remain in effect until the new building is complete.
Material from previous Item stories was used in this report. Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].
