“Sticker shock” might be a fair description of Harvard residents’ response to the cost estimates for renovating or rebuilding Hildreth Elementary School. At a June 1 building committee meeting, resident David Hopper, of Littleton Road, asked for “an option that shows townspeople a low-cost solution.” And some people responding to the online survey about the HES project raised the same issue, in effect asking, “What is the cost for the most basic renovation plan we could do?”
Selectwoman Alice von Loesecke, who is also a member of the building committee, recently put together figures for that basic plan and came up with an answer: $22.4 million. She used the figures supplied by cost estimators for the project’s architectural firm, Arrowstreet, for demolishing and rebuilding the kindergarten wing and bringing the rest of the school up to current codes for fire safety, wheelchair accessibility, electrical systems, and structural reinforcement.
In a June 4 telephone interview, von Loesecke explained that this minimum figure did not include replacing HES’s leaking roof or troublesome heating system. Nor did it cover any upgrades to the building’s outside walls, such as added insulation. The $22.4 million did, however, include about $2 million for leasing modular units to house students for a year during the renovation.
No state aid at the lowest level
Most importantly, von Loesecke pointed out, none of that $22.4 million would be reimbursed by the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The MSBA reimburses only plans that support educational improvements, not plans limited to what is basically building maintenance. Harvard residents would be on the hook for the full cost—an increase of $1,000 to the average annual property tax bill, von Loesecke said.
Adding a new roof and heating system, along with the improvements featured in the educational program for the project, gave a total project cost of $36.8 million, according to von Loesecke’s calculations. But that total would come with $14.6 million in MSBA reimbursements, making Harvard’s share $22.2 million.
Von Loesecke also ran the numbers for adding a new cafeteria and school kitchen as well as the roof, heating, and educational improvements, which took the total to $38.9 million, of which Harvard would have to pay $24.1 million after state reimbursement.
The two latter estimates both required using modular classrooms for two years, von Loesecke said, at an estimated cost of about $5 million.
Both options proposed by the building committee assume that the district central office will move out of Bromfield House and into the new or renovated elementary school. However, von Loesecke left out that aspect, she said, because the 2,000 square feet of office space are not eligible for MSBA reimbursement. As a result, her computations do not reflect either the costs or the savings of the move.
The costs of the additional square footage are not broken out, and von Loesecke said they differ depending on the option selected. A chart she presented to the selectmen on June 6 shows $1.75 million as the cost under one set of plans and $1.25 million under other plans. As for the savings, a 2013 study estimated it would cost $686,000 to renovate the century-old Bromfield House and make just the first floor wheelchair accessible, but that estimate would likely be higher today.
While she worked only on numbers for renovating the school building, von Loesecke said she had not yet decided how she would vote on June 8, when the building committee must choose between renovation or replacement.
Asked about still having a 1988 building after spending $22 million to $24 million, von Loesecke cited Arrowstreet principal architect Larry Spang. At a recent building committee meeting, Spang said renovations can greatly reduce the risk of problems with a building, but they do not eliminate that risk.
Von Loesecke summed up her conclusions from running the numbers: “We can’t do nothing, and we want to do something with the state—we don’t want it all on our own dime.”
