AMHERST — A methodical evaluation of the two sites on which a new or renovated elementary school could be built, already in progress by the Elementary School Building Committee, is expected to be finalized at its meeting Monday morning.
With many opinions being provided to the committee, and even a petition circulating stating a preference for the future site of the 575-student, K-5 project, Town Council President Lynn Griesemer made an impassioned plea at this week’s council meeting to allow the committee to freely do its work in selecting either the Fort River School site on South East Street or the Wildwood School site on Strong Street.
“The School Building Committee is authorized to decide which site, and they need to be able to do that unencumbered, based on all the information that they have spent months, and I mean months, mulling through,” Griesemer said.
The committee’s decision, said District 1 Councilor Cathy Schoen, who chairs the 13-member panel, should mean that not only will a site for the project be known, but also whether the building will be brand new or an addition and renovation to an existing 1970s-era building. The decision will also determine whether the school will be two stories or three stories tall, she said.
The project currently has an estimated cost of between $102 million and $108 million, with the cost higher if built at the Fort River location.
Following the site selection decision at the 8:30 a.m. meeting on Monday, a detailed report will be drawn up for a committee vote at its June 24 meeting. Then the town and DiNisco Design will submit this report and supporting documents to the Massachusetts School Building Authority in advance of its August meeting.
“We have to have them agree that we reached a reasoned decision around a preferred option,” Schoen said.
Griesemer said if MSBA approves the project, the Town Council can schedule a Proposition 2 ½ debt-exclusion vote for spring 2023.
“Only upon the time they do that, and the MSBA comes back to us and says, we agree with you, and, by the way, here’s how much money we’re going to give you, then the Town Council has to decide how we’re going to fund that,” Griesemer said.
Schoen said the committee has been using a systematic process to rank the different options and filling out a matrix with a scoring system that takes into account the total costs and duration of construction, open space available, impacts on traffic, and how well the building fits with the education program and offers flexibility in the future.
Each site has advantages and disadvantages, with 19.8 acres at Fort River meaning more open space and playing fields than the 10.5 acres at Wildwood. But a higher water table at Fort River makes any building more complicated and expensive, while Wildwood is a campus near the middle school and high school.
Griesemer said she is also frustrated that some residents are pushing for repurposing the vacant school building, even though it will belong to the school district until classes are no longer held there. “We’re talking about a hypothetical way down the road,” Griesemer said.
She also wondered why it would be appropriate to immediately transform the vacant school when significant investment would be needed, including a new roof, if it were to be used as a Youth Empowerment Center or a new Senior Center.
“If students shouldn’t be in it then why do we think our seniors can be in it, why do we think our youth centers can be in it?”
Griesemer said the cascading set of decisions can only be made by the Town Council if and when the School Committee tells councilors the building is no longer needed.
“The first thing I’d like to do is see us get this past voters and have a brand new elementary school,” Griesemer said.
District 1 Councilor Michele Miller said for some voters there may be a package deal where they will want to vote for the school project, but only if it is known what the empty school can be used for in the future.
“I think that if we can start to get some of those ideas out into the public a little bit it would be really helpful,” Miller said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
