The new Pickering Middle School cleared a major hurdle this week.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority approved the project scope and budget agreement at its meeting on Wednesday.
“For the last couple of months, we’ve been saying, ‘Things are looking good, but it’s not official in terms of the funding,’” Mayor Jared Nicholson told the School Building Committee. “It’s official now that that’s the budget we’re going to get.”
MSBA will pay $104.5 million toward the project, leaving the city’s share at just over $62 million.
Lynn Stapleton of LeftField Project Management said that MSBA made a small adjustment to the budget that the district submitted in October.
The October submission had MSBA paying $105.2 million toward the project. The adjustment raised the city’s share by approximately $745,000.
“This was primarily due to a drama classroom that was added between the preferred schematic report phase and the schematic design submission phase,” Stapleton said. “MSBA, when we had agreed that we would not have any ineligible spaces, had not accounted for this change, which they felt was made after they made the agreement. So, they counted it as ineligible.”
She added that MSBA allows the 850-square-foot classroom to stay as part of the project, but they will not cover any associated costs.
“On the plus side, they counted every other space in the building as eligible,” Gene Raymond of Raymond Design Associates said.
Nicholson pointed out that the city’s share was projected to be $25-$30 million higher in initial planning.
“With the MSBA’s increase in their funding cap, the city received a large benefit, and it actually put the project in the realm of being affordable to the city,” Stapleton added.
The next step is for the City Council to approve funding the city’s share of the project. That vote will be in the coming weeks.
“Once the City Council approves the funding, the MSBA will send a project funding agreement for the city and the MSBA to execute,” Stapleton said.
