Belmont Submits 'Interest' in Renovating High School

The first step in the renovation and expansion of the 40-year-plus Belmont High School was taken Tuesday night, March 19, as the Belmont School Committee voted to approve an application to the Massachusetts School Building Authority expressing its "interest" in being placed on the authority's waiting list of communities seeking state grants for a "new" school. 

The recently-updated "Statement of Interest" also shows just how expensive delays are for taxpayers in remodeling the increasingly-threadbare structure.

What was anticipated to cost $62.3 million in 2008 dollars to renovate the 257,000 square-foot structure and create a new science wing is now estimated to cost between $90.6 million to a high of $100.8 million if construction begins in 2016 according to calculations from Cambridge-based Design Partnership, said Tony DiCologero, Belmont Schools' director of Finance, Business and Operations.

But don't expect to be stepping into a modernized Belmont High anytime soon, said members of the School Committee Tuesday.

The formal Statement of Interest must be approved by the Belmont Board of Selectmen – which is expected to happen at the Board's April 5 joint meeting with the School Committee – before being sent to the agency before its April 10 deadline for applications. 

If Belmont's application "gets the green light" and placed on the authority's capital pipeline for partial construction financing, the Belmont Town Meeting will need to approve the creation of a building committee. A feasibility study will then be authored and finally town voters will need to approve a debt exclusion to pay its portion of the building. 

According to Belmont Schools Superintendent Dr. Thomas Kingston, even if a renovated Belmont High was selected by the Authority this year, the first shovels would not be in the ground until sometime in 2015.

Just how much money the town will be on the hook will depend on the MSBA's calculation of acceptable under its formula. The MSBA issued $12.4 million in state funds towards the construction of the $39.7 million Wellington Elementary School which opened in September 2011.

The "Statement of Interest" is not the first attempt the School Department and School Committee has made to the MSBA on the High School. In fact, the town has submitted an application to the Authority on a yearly basis since 2004.

This year, the School Committee and Department committed to updating the application – Kingston praised Jenny Fallon and Pat Brusch of an advisory group created in January "with great examples and suggestions" – with current information and data including information gleamed from last year's accreditation report from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges that pinpointed deficiencies in student learning due to the building's deteriorating condition. 

The application points to four priorities in seeking the renovation: prevention the loss of accreditation, replacing the windows and HVAC systems to increase conservation and decrease energy costs, update an increasingly obsolete building and an anticipated increase of an additional 200 students to the school by 2023. 

The 17 percent increase in pupil population from the current 1,120 "is not an explosion but an incremental increase that needs to be addressed," said DiCologero.