Framingham School Building Committee OKs Middle School Budget

FRAMINGHAM, MA—The Framingham School Building Committee (SBC) unanimously approved the project budget for the new Fuller Middle School on Monday, Aug. 27.

For the past year, the SBC and Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) worked on a feasibility study to address the conditions of the Fuller Middle School, which was formerly the South High School. According to the announcement, the study concluded that the most cost-effective, sustainable and educationally appropriate solution is to build a new Fuller Middle School which features a learning commons/cafeteria surrounded by collaboration spaces fronting a perimeter of classrooms, an 8,300-square-foot gymnasium, 420-seat auditorium, and full building air conditioning.

The MSBA is anticipated to provide a grant of approximately $39.5 million. The approximate total project cost is $98.3 million with the City’s share after the grant from the MSBA estimated to be $58.8 million. With forward planning by the former town meeting, town manager, and Board of Selectmen, it is part of the SBC’s plan that $8 million from the city’s Capital Building Stabilization Fund will be allocated towards this project, reducing the new project costs to the city.

“The collaborative cost reduction action strategy the School Building Committee went through over the past four months led to more than $12.2 million dollars in savings before we finalized our plans”, said David Miles, co-chair of the School Building Committee, in a statement. “Through our collaboration with the Massachusetts School Building Authority, Framingham Public Schools leadership, project manager, and project architects, we were able to balance affordability while also prioritizing the educational attributes our students, educators, and the community need.”

“The thoughtful, collaborative, detail oriented, and transparent process to build a new Fuller Middle School is now in the final phase,” said Adam Freudberg, Chair of the Framingham School Committee, District 4, and School Building Committee member, in a statement. “Together, we have created an opportunity to better support student achievement and educator effectiveness by upgrading old infrastructure decades overdue for a change. Proper infrastructure supports student achievement. And when our schools achieve, it makes our school district’s evaluations and reputation rise, impacting our city’s desirability, our property values, and our economic growth.”

On September 12, 2018, the next step for this project is for the Schematic Design Report to be submitted to the MSBA in preparation for their scheduled approval at its Oct. 31 board meeting, said the announcement.

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