MSBA Team Visits Pittsfield Schools Considered for Funding Project
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — While all three West Side school sites must be considered for the proposed MSBA project, early studies show Crosby Elementary is likely the best fit.
Last Tuesday, designers Jesse Saylor and Randall Luthor from TSKP Studio gave an overview of the Preliminary Design Program for the project involving Crosby Elementary School, Conte Community School, and possibly Stearns Elementary School.
The team toured each school on Friday prior, as the Massachusetts School Building Authority requires consideration of the three locations, as well as different enrollments, designs, and construction scope. This shakes out into 15 different options.
"We are obligated to develop options for all these sites, and we will do so because the MSBA requires us to," Saylor told the School Building Needs Commission.
"I think you probably can already tell from my tone that I see some more potential in the Crosby site than I do in the other two, but we need to go just forward and explore and see where it comes out."
The team is working on the first half of the feasibility study, having begun with the existing conditions assessment, site development requirements, and educational visioning. The PDP, also including the educational plan, design choice, and budget, will be submitted at the end of January.
They are working to pull together information from the visits on Friday, when about 15 people toured the three schools and assessed their condition.
A new school in the West Side is estimated to be at least five years out.
"I think, thus far, it has been a really meaningful process as well as an exciting one," Superintendent Latifah Phillips said.
"In my experience, I've often joined projects as they're at the tail end, so not at the beginning where we're actually setting a vision, so it's actually been very exciting bringing three schools together that have different approaches to elementary education, and neither is better or worse. They're just all different."
Walking through the three schools, she realized that school staff often don't see other buildings and how they are utilized. There were many eye-opening moments for principals as they toured unfamiliar halls.
Phillips also recognized that Pittsfield has the opportunity to build a school for three high-need populations, "and being able to build a school that's going to be not only a school that will deliver on the best education of the kids currently there, but also the future, the future populations that maybe are leaving or don't know they're coming yet.
"This is just a tremendous opportunity for our city."
Mayor Peter Marchetti, recognizing that the committee is not the final decision-maker, suggested an update with the City Council and School Committee. The council authorizes borrowing for these projects, and the mayor said if they find out about the plan two weeks beforehand, it's "not going to be a good thing."
Along with the project schedule, he said knowing who needs to sign off at which checkpoints would be helpful, as they are now about six weeks into working group meetings. The team agreed to bring regular updates moving forward.
"The longer we keep people in the dark, the harder it's going to be to explain why you need to vote to authorize $125 million at the end of the day," Marchetti said.
He recognized Pittsfield is also vying for MSBA funds to repair Pittsfield High School, and doesn't want constituents to feel uninformed, because there is even more work to do in the city.
"For me, this isn't just about Crosby; it's about the entire package of what we're doing in Pittsfield Public Schools, and then take the School Committee hat, put the mayor hat on, there's a lot of other projects that we need. So there's a lot of capital outlays that this community is going to be expected to pay for in the next three to five years," he added.
"It's not just a Crosby. It's a Crosby. It's a police station. It's the renovation of the Springside House. It's the renovation of Old Town Hall. It's the roads that we all want done, and it's Pittsfield High. If we are not providing a cohesive message to the leadership of the city and the community, because at the end of the day we need the community to be buying into this, I just think you lose it."
Designers recognized that Crosby, built in 1967, is very well maintained, but has some items coming to the end of their service life and driving more maintenance costs. This includes broken windows, which cannot be replaced due to presumed hazardous materials in the caulking, an old roof, and some masonry damage.
There will be a separate study on the boiler room systems and surveys for hazardous materials, geotechnical, and traffic.
The MSBA outlined 15 options for this feasibility study. Just Crosby would have a capacity of 225 students, Crosby and Conte would have 445 students, and a consolidation of the three schools would have 600 students.
New construction, renovation, and adding an addition are other considerations, as well as a base repair option to address code issues and components reaching the end of their service life at Crosby.
Crosby sits on 37 acres, significantly larger than the other school sites. It has a singular vehicle entry and exit from West Street, but there is a potential for another vehicle connection. Crosby is deeded to Pittsfield for educational use only, and the community uses its athletic fields.
The site has some significant slopes that make development difficult. Three spots on the property were identified for building: on the fields, adjacent to the existing building, and closer to West Street.
Conte has several development constraints on the 15-acre site, with wetlands that reduce the buildable area to about 5 acres. Designers believe they may be able to fit a building for 600 kids there.
Stearns has the smallest property, 9.5 acres, is constrained by steep slopes, and the school reports struggles with parking as it is. Some space was converted into parking, now having around 50 spaces, but a 600-student school would need double the parking and to expand from 40,000 to 120,00 square feet.
This Lebanon Avenue site was described as a "challenging" place to achieve project goals.
Tags: Crosby/Conte project, school building committee,
