LYNN — Members of the Pickering Middle School Building Committee met virtually Tuesday night to review procurement delays, construction progress, and next steps for ground stabilization efforts at the new school site, where engineers have encountered unusually unstable soil conditions. There will be a public forum on the topic on April 30.
The city’s project management team, led by Craig DiCarlo of LeftField and Lynn Stapleton, updated the committee on ongoing challenges and progress, including a pending electrical bid protest and plans to mitigate seismic soil risks through specialized drilling work.
Stapleton confirmed that while the Attorney General’s Office denied a protest over resilient flooring bids, allowing Ayotte & King to be awarded the contract, another protest remains unresolved. Annese Electric filed a formal complaint after Interstate Electric was deemed the low bidder by less than $5,000 in a March 26 rebid. A hearing with the Attorney General’s office is scheduled for April 30.
“These paragraph E protests are causing disruption to project schedules across the state,” Stapleton said, referring to recent trends in public construction disputes.
On the construction front, Superintendent Pierre Joas of Consigli Construction said the team has used the delays strategically. Crews completed 70% of utility installation and are ahead of schedule on stormwater detention systems and geothermal drilling. Geothermal test wells are being installed during April vacation, with 45 total wells expected on the Pickering side of the site.
However, the biggest engineering hurdle remains the soil beneath the school’s future footprint. Stapleton explained that the condition—technically known as liquefaction — can cause the soil to behave like “quicksand” during seismic events.
The team has agreed on a dual mitigation strategy: rigid inclusions drilled up to 45 feet below the surface to support the building’s foundations, and a system of earthquake drains beneath the slab to relieve groundwater pressure.
“This is a solution that all parties have vetted,” said DiCarlo. “We’ve pulled in engineering teams from across the country to get it right.”
Consigli has since replaced its subcontractor with a firm experienced in both systems. Officials expect to provide a full update on the cost and schedule impacts at the next SBC meeting in May.
In addition to the technical updates, the meeting included a preview of a redistricting forum scheduled for April 30 at Pickering’s gym. The forum is part of a broader effort to redraw middle school boundaries to align with the new school’s opening. A final proposal will go before the School Committee in June.
Before adjourning, Mayor Nicholson thanked the project team and committee members for their continued support and said, “It’s good news that we now have a solution that has been very, very strongly vetted, and will be very strongly vetted by multiple teams of engineers, independent of one another. So, in a challenging condition, we should have confidence that we’re going to get this right.”
The next SBC meeting is scheduled for May 14.
