HOLYOKE — Mayor Josh Garcia, assisted by several Holyoke city and school officials, provided more details at a Thursday press conference on the city’s $85.5 million plan to construct a new middle school to replace the outdated William R. Peck School.

The project is moving forward after the Massachusetts School Building Authority approved Wednesday to reimburse $46 million for the construction, leaving the city on the hook for the remaining $40 million.

Garcia said no property taxes would need to be raised to provide that funding.

“From now on going forward, we’re going to have to monitor this very carefully,” Garcia said. “It’s going to take us to be very conservative in future needs in this city as we tackle future projects. It’s going to take financial forecasting to be sure that we’re hitting our target objectives to take on the obligation for annual payments to support this school.”

City Treasurer Rory Casey said that the city would use various federal funds to help pay for the new school, such as money received from the American Rescue Plan Act and from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, given out to aid school districts following the pandemic.

“We’ve been able to reduce certain budgetary pressures, while at the same time using some of this one-time historic infusion of money from the federal government,” Casey said. “We’ve made some strategic investments, and really reshaped the way the treasury handles cash in order to afford this.”

The city has for several years sought to replace the middle school, which officials say fails to meet the needs of its students with its design. Two years ago, an attempted debt-exclusion override at the ballot box to cover the costs of building two new middle schools to replace Peck and H.B. Lawrence Elementary School was overwhelmingly rejected by voters, however, which would have cost taxpayers $54 million.

“Never for one moment did I take that as a defeat,” he said. “I took it instead as an opportunity to reconcile, to continue to work with our community to understand how to best go forward with the shared desire, which every member in every corner of the city did believe that we needed a new middle school.”

Issues with the current Peck building off Northampton Street include classrooms with no windows, mechanical systems at the end of their design lives or missing vital components that are no longer made, unusable science labs, and a hexagonal design that blocks internal visibility and teachers’ ability to monitor the halls.

Holyoke Public School Superintendent Anthony Soto said during Thursday’s press conference that he had come to agree with how his students felt about the building, which he said they had told him felt like being in “jail.”

“It really took me back that a student in seventh grade is feeling that way about the building that he’s in,” Soto said. “I can guarantee that we’re not going to design a space like that.”

Soto also said that staffing in the district would be unaffected by the closure of the current building and shifting of students to other schools.

“We made a promise and a commitment to all of our staff that as long as you’re in good standing, you have a job here,” he said.

Design plans for the proposed new building show a middle school that’s two stories high, with a center courtyard surrounded by two rectangular buildings. The first floor will house most of the school’s classrooms, along with two science labs and administrative offices. The second floor features a media center, an art room and a technology lab. A third rectangular building perpendicular to the other two buildings hosts the school’s cafeteria and gymnasium.

Erin Brunelle, a member of the Holyoke School Committee, said it was “about time” the construction for the new building was approved.

“We’ve come a long way,” she said. “We’re putting a new emphasis on ensuring that students in the middle school population have all the tools they need to be successful, not only for high school but for a career and college and beyond.”

The school is expected to open either in the fall or winter of 2025, and will serve approximately 550 students in grades 6-8. In the meantime, Sullivan School, Holyoke STEM and Metcalf Middle School will serve all middle schoolers in the city while the school is being constructed.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.

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