Less than two weeks after voters approved funding, the project to build a new elementary school has already entered its design and development phase. At a May 16 meeting, the School Building Committee agreed on a work plan that aims for a February 2021 move-in date. The plan includes the dates for each milestone that must be met before construction can start next spring. Demolition of the existing school and final sitework is scheduled for completion in August 2021.
In the first nine weeks of the design and development phase, architect Arrowstreet Inc. will develop drawings of the interior, exterior, and site plans, and will meet with the building committee about every two weeks for feedback. The drawings are scheduled to be complete and sent to the estimator July 23.
Committee member Ron Ostberg expressed concern that the initial nine-week phase “is really pushing it” to cover all the design issues in a project of this magnitude. Schools Superintendent Linda Dwight asked why it had to be done so quickly, and committee member Don Ludwig said that the end date could not be pushed out without affecting the bond rate. Project manager Tom Murphy added that building committees often feel rushed during this phase, but it is standard practice to keep a tight schedule to save money.
When estimates are in, the project manager will reconcile them with the budget and begin the “value engineering” process, which analyzes tradeoffs of value versus cost for specific items in the estimate that might be candidates for paring down or eliminating. The committee is scheduled to vote on the estimates and submit the design development documentation to the Massachusetts School Building Authority Aug. 23, and the design and development phase is slated to be complete Sept. 28.
The design documents will also be submitted to the Planning Board and the Conservation Commission Sept. 17. In an earlier version of the schedule, the documents would have been submitted to those boards a month earlier, but architect Larry Spang told the committee he was concerned about relying on feedback during August when many committees struggle to get a quorum of members. The current schedule allows for three meetings with each group during October and November if necessary. During that time, Arrowstreet will also be preparing the final construction documents, and that work will continue into spring 2019.
