See Inside New Doherty High School In Worcester, Opening Soon

WORCESTER, MA — No Worcester student has ever experienced a school like the new Doherty High School.

The brand new, 425,000 square-foot school will welcome students for the first time on Aug. 26 after nearly three years under construction. The school, with its nearly $320 million price tag, will offer amenities and educational experiences unlike any high school around, from state-of-the-art vocational facilities to a cafeteria that looks like it was copied from some tech company's campus in Silicon Valley.

Worcester school officials and representatives from Lamoureux Pagano Associates Architects took members of the media on a tour of the new building Tuesday, showing off portions of the school for athletics, technical education and performing arts.

Construction on the new Doherty building began in November 2021. The project ran into a snag in September 2022 when a fire broke out in the building, which at that point was mostly a steel skeleton. Months before the fire, the cost of the school ballooned by $23 million from an estimated $293 million due to inflation and increased construction costs.

The original 165,000 square-foot Doherty building was built in 1966 and once stood where the new school's athletic fields will be completed. The new building is five floors built across a slope abutting the Newton Hill disc golf course. The building features an array of solar panels to cut down on energy costs, and meets the new energy stretch code adopted by the city last year.

The school is split into two sections. The east side of the school features four academic wings facing Park Avenue. A long multi-story atrium cuts the building in half, with the gym, auditorium, music rooms, a guidance suite, cafeteria and media center on the west side.

The school is still an active construction site, with large portions — like the athletic fields and parking areas — still being buttoned up. But whole portions of the school stood ready to welcome students, from fields of cafeteria tables to rows of Roland electric pianos and bandsaws still wrapped in plastic.

School officials pledged the building will be ready by opening day on Aug. 26, with construction crews set to work straight through until then.

"We'll be ready, we'll be ready," Principal John Staley said Tuesday.