School proposal approved
State panel OK's $44m for project
On a day when the stock market dropped 777 points, the Massachusetts School Building Authority confronted a difficult decision on the fate of the Wellesley High School project: yes or no.
The authority approved the project Monday, despite fears of a nationwide credit crunch. The approval sends the project to the next step in the long process, with Town Meeting this month slated to consider Wellesley's share of the cost.
The price tag stands at $135.6 million, including $110 million in construction costs. The School Building Authority voted to reimburse $44 million - or roughly 44 percent - of the capped construction costs.
Katherine Craven, the state authority's executive director, said the costs were "in line" with the kinds of bids for similar projects in other municipalities, and state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, who sits as chairman of the authority's board, said it had vigorously vetted the Wellesley project's design.
The nation's economic turmoil is "a real issue," Cahill said, "and we're pushing back on real dollars to get these schools built for a reasonable cost." If the credit industry does dry up, he said, some communities may have to look at doing repairs and renovations to get by for a decade. But considering the condition of Wellesley's 70-year-old high school building, said Cahill, "there is not an option to do nothing."
"Instead of making costly repairs and then paying more in 10 years for a high school because of increased construction costs, the MSBA and Wellesley will save money by working to create a cost-effective and educationally appropriate new high school today," said Cahill.
In a highly publicized move earlier this year, Cahill and Craven pushed back hard on the town's original proposal - one that called for a 327,000-square-foot building costing $159 million. With a growing public outcry over the new Newton North High School's $198 million tab, the state authority convinced Wellesley officials to scale back their proposal to 280,000 square feet with a $110 million cap on the construction costs that qualify for reimbursement.
The School Building Authority in August moved Wellesley to a phase of the state funding process in which it would develop a more detailed budget and schematic designs of its scaled-back plan. On Monday, it was voting on whether to commit MSBA funds to help pay for the project.
One authority board member, Lisa Turnbaugh, a program management leader with
"In this economy," she said, "we're going to take a hard look at costs." The per-square-foot cost of Wellesley, she noted, is approaching $395.
But Tom Goemaat, a member of the Wellesley School Building Committee and the chief executive officer of a construction company specializing in schools, said the square-foot price for the construction itself - not including contingencies and other "soft" costs - was $300.
Now Wellesley officials must ask Special Town Meeting, scheduled to convene on Oct. 20, to approve spending roughly $86.6 million on the project. The figure includes Wellesley's share of the construction costs - approximately $66 million - plus the full cost of about $20.6 million in other expenses.
Those extra expenses include $3.6 million to buy residential lots that abut the property where the new school will be built, $3.1 million to air-condition academic areas, $2 million for mitigating parking and transportation needs at the existing high school while the new construction takes place, and $1.5 million for features aimed at energy and environmental savings. They also include almost $9 million to cover potential cost increases and unforeseen expenses beyond the 5 percent allowed by MSBA.
If the plan is approved by Town Meeting members, the it would go before voters townwide on Dec. 9.
Selectwoman Katherine Babson, who is also chairwoman of the town's School Building Committee, expressed optimism about gaining approval from Wellesley's residents.
"Everything's in line for the project to go forward," said Babson. "I very much appreciated the positive comments that Treasurer Cahill made about the project and the review that the MSBA took at looking at and analyzing it. He clearly supported the direction that the School Building Committee has taken and we're moving forward."
Just minutes after the MSBA's vote to approve Wellesley's project, Congress rejected a bailout proposal intended to steady the nation's economy. That was followed by the largest point drop in the US stock market's history, underscoring one MSBA finance official's warning that there "could be a real credit crunch coming."
Babson, however, said "it's absolutely too soon to say" whether this week's economic picture could affect the willingness of Wellesley residents to approve the high school project, or the town's ability to secure construction loans more than 18 months down the road, when the work is expected to begin.
Echoing Cahill's remarks, Babson said, "No matter what the circumstances are, we know we need more space in that building, we know all the systems in the current building are beyond their useful life, and we know the project needs to go forward." 