The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School has a short list of three architecture firms to choose from for its planned renovation or rebuild project.
The three firms to choose from are Mount Vernon Group Architects of Massachusetts and New Jersey, Tappé Architects of Massachusetts, and Jonathan Levy Architects of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The high school’s project was accepted into the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) program in 2022, meaning that MSBA could end up reimbursing towns nearly 40 percent of the project’s costs.
For next steps in the state process, a design select panel (DSP) — made up of school officials and committee members — will work to rank these finalists before choosing an architect for the project. The panel will meet on April 9 and 23 to interview and rank the three firms.
“This is an incredibly significant step, about as significant as hiring the OPM was in January,” says Sam Hart, Coordinator of Pathways and Special Projects at the high school. The school committee agreed in December to enter into a contract with CHA Consulting of Boston as the owner’s project manager (OPM).
Hart says that schematic designs and an overall cost for the project are yet to come, but that by December or November of next year, the school could have a number of schematic designs at hand. Hart says that they may then be able to bring the project before town voters.
Hart says that choosing a firm will enable deeper consideration of the project. “[We will] give that firm as much of an opportunity as possible to think holistically about the entire campus and bring forward a design that the [towns] voters would support,” Hart said.
The high school has also set up a “Building Tomorrow Together” webpage with background and information on their project.
Hart adds that there are a wide range of possibilities for a final plan. “It may be the recommendation that we just kind of update our HVAC system,” he said. Or it could mean a complete rebuild.
Taxpayer be afraid as this will be in the several hundreds of millions of dollars even after the 40% from MSBA which is not cast in stone either. Let’s build a school and not a monument to every great idea out there.
Please submit your design and and bid amount.
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