Officials planning the next Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School building are whittling down their options for a rebuild, and possibly going by the wayside is the likely cheapest one — to completely renovate the current building.
According to project architects, going with just a remodel will risk losing out on the roughly 30 percent reimbursement from the state through the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
The high school building committee is made up of representatives from the school and Island towns, and they’re working to submit three final project designs to the state authority by May: a renovation-only project, one for a renovation-addition project, and one of an entirely new building.
The confirmation about the reno option comes as officials have been trying to cut down on square footage and corresponding project costs. Over a dozen early designs presented by Tappé Architects in December came with estimated price tags of around $200 million for a renovation to more than $400 million for some new-construction options.
But officials on Tuesday said that a renovation-only project would seriously jeopardize reimbursement, confirming a potential noted by partners back in October.
The reason has to do with a space summary approved by the committee, which tells the MSBA that the project will meet a size of 211,000 square feet. This number reflects the school education programs as well as square-footage requirements from the MSBA.
But as the high school is currently only around 165,000 square feet, officials said, a renovation option would fall short by nearly 50,000 square feet.
“When we approved the size of the space, it eliminated the ability to do the renovation, or the renovation to be an option, because it doesn’t meet that space requirement that we’ve approved,” said committee member Dion Alley .
The committee could ultimately choose to revise its space summary if they wanted to go with a renovation, though some members considered that option no longer feasible.
“It seems like we’ve eliminated that option,” Skipper Manter said. “And I’m not sure all people will respect that,” he added, “because by adopting the square footage and other things that we’ve been talking about, we’ve taken that option off the table.”
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the committee narrowed down more early designs, progressing toward arriving at one of each of the three project types. In October, Tappé presented one renovation design, five addition-renovation designs, and 13 for an entirely new high school building.
As of Tuesday, three of the new construction designs remain, along with one addition-renovation and one renovation.
While narrowing down new construction options on Tuesday, members favored three preliminary designs. One featured two-story academic sections, and central courtyard space with an adjoining cafeteria and media center, while the other showed three-story academic wings. School business administrator Mark Friedman asked Tappé to assess whether the school’s windowless performing arts center could be placed in the interior of the building, as opposed to the outer edge of the structure.
Principal Sara Dingledy also noted her concerns over the use of modular units if the committee chose to build an entirely new structure. The cost of modular units is not reimbursable by the MSBA, and Chris Sharkey of Tappé noted that using modular buildings during construction could add 12 to 18 months to the project. He also told Dingledy that his firm would assess ways that a new construction option could be built in phases, limiting construction to certain parts of the school at a time.
The committee meets every two weeks, and will continue to narrow down preliminary designs in its next meeting.
As a person that sat on the second Tisbury School Building Committee, it was my understanding that if the school met educational requirements at the time it was built, it could be renovated, without expansion, and qualify for funding from MSBA.
Has that changed?
Brewster is doing it: https://massschoolbuildings.org/index.php/programs/story_of_a_building/Webster_Bartlett_School
Of course Tappe will not suggest that, they don’t earn as much money.
Someone needs to look into it instead of taking Tappe’s word for it.
$400 million, that seems insane to me!
$400 million IS totally insane.
There are no $400M options on the table. Attend a meeting before writing something like this.
This is a false narrative.
Islanders don’t be misled. Not sure how these falsehoods clear the screeners! The Times should be better than this!
Dan, I would encourage you to listen in full detail to the many building committee meetings that explain in detail the circumstances. This article doesn’t cover the details in full and Tappe has no bias on what the island to do. We are not motivated by how much money is to be earned and I think the record of meetings will show that we have continually stated it is the building committee’s choice, not ours. We support any option the island wants to choose, but the narrative that somehow we would intentionally mislead the island out of financial motivation is not based in any facts of any kind.
We are a firm that is based on helping communities design educationally appropriate buildings that are as cost effective as possible. We are also responsible for advising our clients and their communities of ALL risk and side affects from various options. We take all of that seriously.
Please go back and watch ALL building committee meetings to get up to speed on all the aspects and variables of the project and to understand that we are not a financially motivated firm. We never have been and never will be and any narrative to the contrary is baseless, false and unacceptable.
Hopefully, the final design will incorporate
passive solar elements, such 80% of all
windows face south, highly insulated,
air-tight, triple-pane windows,
clerestory windows to dump heat,
heat-pump water heaters,
mini-split hvac heat pumps, and
phase-change material in walls and
ceilings tuned to 72 degrees.
Mr. Blesson,
What you failed to address in your comment is that a school can renovate without enlarging if it met educational standards at the time it was built. That was the overriding statement. Will leave your other comments for others to determine their merit.
While the original estimates for the high school renovation/rebuild project were between 200 and over 400 million, the committee has worked to cut the footprint of the project down as well as corresponding costs. As the committee is currently narrowing down preliminary designs for a variety of options, an official cost estimate for the final project is yet to be reached.
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