HANOVER – A project to build a new South Shore Tech building, in order to meet the educational and workplace needs of this century, is ready to take the next step forward.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), at its April 24 Board of Directors meeting, voted to authorize the South Shore Regional Vocational School District to move to the next phase of its high school construction project. The district now officially enters the Schematic Design phase, where its project team will continue to develop detailed plans for a proposed new 900 student building at 476 Webster St., Hanover.
“We’re very excited the MSBA invited us to go onto the next step in the process, which is preferred schematic design,” Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey said this week. “It’s basically a six-month window [during which] our architect, working with our project team to refine and develop designs for the school.”
Those designs will be reviewed by MSBA on Oct. 30 for the decision on what the project is valued at and how much MSBA will reimburse the district. Bringing Marshfield into the district – even with increased enrollment – should help each member town’s cost share, Hickey said.
Approved in February by the SST Building and School committees, the design being reviewed had been referred to as “New Construction 2.0” for 900 students.
The district’s homework assignment between now and August, according to Hickey, is to start refining numbers during the design refinement phase.
“Right after we selected the design, and the enrollment number, the design team has been [doing] some preliminary work,” Hickey said.
“While there is never a perfect financial time for such projects, South Shore has served students since 1962 and it is the second oldest regional vocational school in Massachusetts. Its infrastructure and systems need attention,” said School Building Committee Chair Bob Heywood, who also serves as Hanover’s representative to the SST School Committee. “We have a waiting list that is only growing, and we have expanded our district to include the town of Marshfield in an effort to share costs. We look forward to having a quality design ready for further review by the MSBA in the fall.”
The district will be hiring a construction manager in May to help with the final schematic design. A construction manager will provide suggestions for more cost-effective ways to construct the building.
The MSBA, meanwhile, is beginning to interview participants in the school’s shops as well as academic departments, facilities and administration personnel to “zoom in” on what is now a “very rough, conceptual plan,” as Hickey described it.
“We know what the shell is going to look like and how the different spaces are going to be laid out,” he said. “We make shop number estimates.”
From there, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) minimum recommended square footage guidelines based on employers’ stated need and projected enrollment.
Hickey said a lot of SST’s programs fit that description, especially the manufacturing shop, which has a lot of new equipment, so – even if there were no more students enrolled, that shop has a need for more space for the machinery used.
New program plans would also be reviewed by DESE.
“It’s not an overreach,” he said. “We have a sense of what our demand is right now, we have a sense of what shops would take more kids if there was more space. … I know which programs have waiting lists. I also know which programs are very tight for space.”
The district also has to submit viability documentation to DESE, to verify the need for programs either enlarged or added. SST is planning to add veterinary science and plumbing with the construction of a new school. Hickey said that, without a new school, veterinary science could not be offered and plumbing could only be offered as a small add-on to the HVAC program.
“It’s showing the need for it and also validating that what we’re currently offering gives kids a job or post-secondary pathway after graduation,” Hickey said. “We should not be running programs for career pathways that don’t lead anywhere in our region.”
Industry data also shows that, while a given industry might not be growing, some might be “graying out,” needing new people to fill retirements.
“While the industry’s not expanding, who’s taking these jobs?” he said. “I think that message is resonating, and people are in fact, at a younger level, seeing this as an alternative for their high school experience. All the while, it doesn’t mean that they can’t go to college.”
Refined decisions on the placement of instructional spaces, safety and security measures, landscaping of fields and parking will be made over the next four months.
The hiring of a construction manager this month will help make a more affordable plan by advising architects as they create the final design. That position will be paid for under already earmarked feasibility study funds.
The district is also committed to providing preliminary tax impact projections for member towns, and while the amounts won’t be finalized until Fall 2024 officials are prioritizing the importance of informing taxpayers on impacts at the town and household level early in the process, Hickey noted.
So, where does the project go from here?
● April-August 2024: The designers will complete the Schematic Design phase, making revisions along the way and submitting the proposed design and budget in late August
● August-October 2024: MSBA reviews Schematic Design Submission
● October 30, 2024: MSBA Board approval, if on track, will include final total project budget and precise amounts of the MSBA grant for the project.
● January 25, 2025: District-wide ballot question to determine local support for the project. “District-wide” means that all the votes are tallied and combined from each town and the total number of yes and total number of no votes are compared to determine the outcome.
In terms of how district communities will fund the project if approved in January 2025, Hickey points out: “Each town will determine how to fund the project. My sense is that most of our communities will suggest a debt exclusion approach, but that is a local decision. We stand ready to provide information as often as we need to keep residents in our district towns fully informed.”
As of now, the project is estimated at $283.6 million, with about $107 million in state subsidy expected, bringing the anticipated local share to around $176.6 million. Using these preliminary projections, it would put the first year of interest-only borrowing, FY26, at about $700,000 shared between the nine towns.
The amounts will increase for FY27-FY29 when entering the construction phase, with about 60 percent bonding in FY27, 90 percent bonding in FY28, and 100 percent bonding in FY29. If this all goes to plan the new South Shore Tech would open for the 2028-2029 school year.
Separate from this MSBA process, and prior to a project vote in January 2025, the district School Committee is making plans to bring a regional agreement amendment to the member towns in Fall 2024 to change how debt shares are apportioned, moving from a fixed amount to a four-year rolling average based on actual student enrollment. “The idea is that a ‘pay as you go model’ reflecting gradual changes in enrollment is a more fair system of apportioning debt shares over a 30 year period,” Hickey said.