After many public meetings and evaluation of multiple options for the Pollard Middle School Project, the School Building Committee (SBC) voted to approve one preferred option for the Preferred Schematic Report (PSR) at their meeting on December 8. The PSR will be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) on December 18. For more details of the discussion and vote, please view the Dec 8 SBC presentation and meeting.
At the second All Boards Summit on November 24, Needham Parks & Recreation Commission would not agree to consider the land swap required to build a new school on the DeFazio site. This removed DeFazio as an option for a new Pollard School. Therefore only the Pollard site remains as an option. After extensive discussions and feedback from all the boards, the SBC voted on the four remaining questions for the Pollard Project, deciding to recommend a New Construction, Grade 6-8 School on the Pollard site with a 750 seat auditorium.
Construction Manager at Risk
The town plans to engage a Construction Manager at Risk (CMR) to help with the issues and challenges of the Pollard Site. Several firms have already expressed interest in this project, and the town will be interviewing for the CMR position with the goal of choosing someone by March 2026.
Pollard Site Options
Two options were considered for new construction at the Pollard site.
1) A one-phase option which is more compact and would require a four story school. In this option, 6th grade would be blended in with the rest of the school and would not have its own wing.
2) A two-phase option which allows the school to be built with a larger footprint and further from the train tracks, as the 6th grade wing, auditorium and gym would be built in the second phase after the original Pollard building is torn down. This would take longer to complete, but meets more of the goals of the project.
Cost Estimates
The above costs are preliminary estimates and will be further developed during the upcoming Schematic Design Phase. There will likely be reductions in the total cost of the project as details are clarified.
MSBA will likely reimburse around 20% of the project costs. They anticipate getting extra points for reimbursement by meeting energy codes so the reimbursement rate may be higher.
Two-Phase vs One-Phase
A two-phase project would be more expensive due to extended time for construction, but the advantages of this design are significant.
After extensive discussion, the SBC voted to recommend pursuing Option 5E: New Construction, Grade 6-8 Configuration, with a 750 Seat Auditorium on the Pollard Site for the Pollard Middle School Project.
Next Steps
The Preferred Schematic Report (PSR) will be approved at the next SBC meeting and will be submitted to the MSBA on December 18.
For information on the Pollard Project or to sign up for e-mail updates, check out the Pollard Middle School Project Website.