LYNN — Engineers recommended moving the site of the new Pickering Middle School from Magnolia Park to a lot next to Sisson Elementary School at a Pickering School Building Committee meeting Wednesday evening.
The project’s lead engineer Gene Raymond, president of Raymond Design Associates, suggested the site change to avoid potential cost jumps and flooding hazards associated with building the school at Magnolia Park.
When the committee met last on Feb. 7, committee members discussed ways to cut costs of the school’s construction. Mayor Jared Nicholson said the current projected costs were tens of millions of dollars higher than the project’s initial estimated costs.
On Wednesday, Raymond listed a variety of new potential costs likely to arise from the committee’s original Magnolia Park plan. Raymond said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recently amended their flood plain maps to include the entirety of Magnolia Park.
The new flood plain status means that the school would have to be built several feet higher than originally planned, further increasing the project’s total cost and delaying its timeline.
Construction costs for Magnolia Park had already increased significantly because the bedrock sits below 165 feet of “urban material” beneath the surface. Raymond said that the process of excavating the urban material would cost about $200 per cubic yard.
Additionally, the foundation would have to be filled with approximately 600 cement piles, a process that Raymond said would increase costs significantly.
“We know we could do it. There’s just a lot of risk, there’s a lot of schedule risks, there’s a lot of money risk,” Raymond said. “We may even think we’ve nailed it all and then start digging in there and find something different.”
Raymond suggested an alternative option, building a five-story school across the street from Magnolia Park at the lot next to Sisson Elementary School.
The new site, Raymond said, would avoid risks of future cost increases, while minimizing the project’s total projected cost by roughly $30 million, and the city’s projected out-of-pocket cost by approximately $6 million. It would also eliminate the city’s need to create new park space to remain compliant with Article 97, while preserving Magnolia Park as an open play area for the students.
“The nice thing about this is you’re building up to [the fifth story] and the foundations are simpler,” Raymond said. “The floor plan is more compact, so I think it’s going to be a more efficient building to build and operate.”
Raymond added that the Sisson site would segregate Sisson traffic to Conomo Avenue, and Pickering traffic to either Broadway or Magnolia Avenue.
Sisson Principal Jane Franklin asked Raymond if the site change would involve removing the modular classrooms currently situated next to the Sisson school.
Raymond responded that the modular classrooms would likely be taken down, but that the committee could explore alternative class spaces to accommodate Sisson during the school’s construction.
Ward 2 City Councilor Rick Starbard responded that the city spent more than $500,000 repairing the modular classrooms 10 years ago. He suggested that the modular classrooms be moved and preserved.
Raymond responded that while there are no solutions set in stone, he had brought up moving them by crane to an alternate location.
The committee will vote on whether to change the project site at their next meeting on March 29. School Committee member Lorraine Gately suggested the building committee hold a public hearing sometime in April should the site change be officialized.
“I really want to have a lot of transparency and a lot of open conversations so that when we do vote, everybody has an idea of what hopefully will happen for the next two years, so that we can try to satisfy both schools at that time,” Gately said.
Nicholson concluded the meeting by thanking the committees for working to lower the project’s cost. He said that neighboring communities have seen similar jumps in construction costs, and that the city is seeking help from the state delegation.
He said that he wanted to be transparent that the city is having issues with being able to afford its share of the proposed move to Sisson.
“We are working with the state delegation to make that clear to the state and communicate what our ask is, and what’s going to be necessary for us to be able to move forward on this project,” Nicholson said.
The committee will review costs April 10, before submitting its preferred schematic report to the Massachusetts School Building Authority April 27.
