LYNN — The city will likely seek state funding for the new Pickering Middle School building project, as estimated costs increased significantly.
At a Pickering School Building Committee meeting Wednesday night, committee members discussed ways to cut costs on the school’s construction, which Mayor Jared Nicholson said were significantly higher (up to tens of millions of dollars) than the project’s estimated costs.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority [MSBA] will cap its reimbursement to the city at 45 percent of the project’s final costs, meaning any cost increases will ultimately be charged to the city.
The project’s lead architect Gene Raymonds presented the committee with a plan to reduce the school’s size by nine percent, bringing the building’s gross square-footage from 193,284 square feet to 176,000 square feet.
“Thinking about costs, square footage has a direct relationship [with construction costs]. We went through the five or six pages on this space summary line-by-line with the school administration, and we we actually identified about 17,000 square feet that we could pull out of the square footage,” Raymond said.
Raymond added that the new design stays within the MSBA’s space guidelines for school buildings, minimizing the city’s out-of-pocket costs.
“None of the square footage in a particular category was above what the MSBA guidelines show. So at the end of the day, we came up with a building that matches MSBA guidelines. That’s important because anything over the guidelines is 100 percent city cost, so it maximizes your reimbursement,” he said.
Construction Supervisor Flory Makuwa suggested keeping the building’s gross square footage the same, and cutting costs by under-developing the constructed spaces. He said that with a growing student population, the space itself might be valuable in the future.
“Is it possible just to maintain the gross square footage that originally was proposed for future growth, but limit the amount of MEP [mechanical, electric and plumbing] that goes into that space? Pretty much just adding a shell that can become a thing in the future,” Makuwa said. “Thurgood Marshall is already full, and we need more classes. I’m just seeing this 30 years from now — we can be looking for more space as the population is growing I think.”
Raymond responded to Makuwa, suggesting that it might be best to plan for the building’s future expansion, rather than build shell space.
“I think one strategy might be to show how you could expand the school in the future and not spend money now on the shell and all the structure in this and that but perhaps making sure that the structure could handle another floor on one of the wings, or if it could expand horizontally,” Raymond responded.
Interim Superintendent of Schools Deb Ruggiero said that she and Raymond discussed reducing the gymnasium’s size slightly, and including makerspaces such as “dance and movement studios” to provide alternatives to traditional physical education classes.
When Raymond said that the added movement spaces would likely cost the school its locker room spaces, school committee member Lorraine Gately said that locker rooms space is essential for a school gym.
“Our children need a place that’s sort of private to change and to store their clothing. If they go in to play basketball, they bring in their street clothes and their fancy sneakers or whatever, and they need a place to store them,” Gately said. “I’m really questioning that [idea].”
Committee member and Masconomet Regional High School teacher Karyn Miller agreed with Gately, adding that the school would not be able to properly host regional sports games or community sport events without locker rooms.
Project Executive Lynn Stapleton said that at the next committee meeting March 15, the site’s refined costs will be presented.
Mayor Nicholson concluded the meeting by thanking the committee for their work to refine the project. He said that while the project’s financial hurdle is not specific to Lynn, it presents a financial challenge for the city.
“I just I want to be clear with the committee that we’re facing some headwinds with the way the costs are going, and it’s not unique to this project, it’s not unique to our community, it’s happened to other school projects around the area and obviously happens in construction generally, but given the the MSBA reimbursement type, that presents a real challenge for the city’s finances,” Nicholson said.
The mayor added that the city is working to mitigate the project’s financial challenges by potentially seeking help from the state.
“We’re going to find a way, but it’s going to require us to have conversations with the state about how to figure this out,” Nicholson said. “We are working closely with the state delegation to facilitate those conversations and try to figure out how we can handle the rising costs.”
