Plan For New Framingham Elementary School Unveiled April 16, 2020
Neal Mcnamara Framingham Patch
FRAMINGHAM, MA - The Framingham School Committee on Wednesday began discussions on a long-awaited plan to build a new elementary school on the south side of the city.

The "optimal" plan would be to build a new 1-5 elementary school along Bethany Road near St Tarcisius Cemetery, and then renovate and expand the Hemenway Elementary building along Water Street to use as a pre-kindergarten to kindergarten school.

That plan delivers a new building soonest and at the lowest cost. The combined plan would cost close to $200 million if funded only by the city, and would deliver the new 1-5 Bethany Road school by 2024. The converted pre-K Hemenway would open 2026, according to plans.

The reason the district is looking at Hemenway, built in 1961, is that it's the next school that will have to either undergo a major renovation or be razed, Superintendent Robert Tremblay said. The idea was already discussed with the Hemenway parent-teacher organization before schools closed due to coronavirus.

Hemenway is also not up to current size standards. If built today, the 580-student school would need to be about 24,000 square-feet bigger under Massachusetts School Building Authority standards.

An architect hired by the district also provided two other scenarios. One would differ from the "optimal" option by building a smaller Bethany Road school for grades K-5, and a brand new building at Hemenway for pre-K to K. The least-preferred plan would simply build a new Hemenway Elementary building along Water Street.

The new school would address a longstanding problem in Framingham - that most students live south of Route 9, but a majority of schools are located north of the highway.

School officials acknowledged that the plans predate coronavirus, which will likely eat into local city and school budgets.

Framingham school officials unveil plans for new elementary school in city's south side April 17, 2020
Zane Razzaq 508-626-3919 Metrowest Daily News
School Committee members unanimously voted to get an appraisal of the Bethany Road parcel. The spot has been floated as a possible school location for years.

FRAMINGHAM - In an effort to go where the students are, school officials recently unveiled initial plans to pursue a long-awaited school south of Rte. 9.

The proposed building would address an established, lopsided inequity in the school system. Currently, just three of its nine schools are in that area, even though two-thirds of its 9,000-plus student body live there. That means students who reside there have longer bus rides, and their parents are less able to attend school and community meetings. It also results in other impacts that extend past education, such as property values.

"This has been a long time coming, and it's not often you get an opportunity where you have available property that would fit into the plan that has to be executed - to provide capacity on the south side," said School Committee member Geoffrey Epstein.

Justin Humphreys, an architect with Concord-based TBA Architects Inc., walked the School Committee through a series of options. The most favored plan saw the district building a new elementary school on a parcel of land along Bethany Road by St. Tarcisius Cemetery.

The proposed school would serve students from preschool to fifth grade.

Projections show that the school would be ready by 2024, and cost nearly $200 million if the city funds it alone. If built with funds from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, it would cost a total of $250 million, with the city paying a little over $150 million.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Robert Tremblay is eyeing Hemenway Elementary School, at 729 Water St., as space for pre-kindergarten to kindergarten programs. The 59-year-old building, which is due for an upgrade, would be renovated and expanded before the program would launch, potentially by 2026.

"Its bones are very good and it's been very well maintained, but it's almost a time capsule of what a school was," said Humphreys, in reference to Hemenway.

Other proposals suggest the district build a new school on Bethany Road and a new, smaller building for the pre-k and kindergarten program at Water Street, or simply rebuild Hemenway on Water Street.

School Committee members unanimously voted to get an appraisal of the Bethany Road parcel. The spot has been floated as a possible school location for years.

In a letter to the City Council, School Committee Chairman Adam Freudberg said he and others were "more than well aware of the COVID-19 impacts on municipal finances."

"The superintendent and I (with the one vote I have) cannot stress enough that we have no plans to move any specific project forward with any new funding requests until the state and federal stimulus efforts are known facts, and the FY21 budget process is completed," wrote Freudberg. "Yet while we wait to be back together, we are taking advantage of the reports the city paid for and are now ready for reviews."

Just before the vote, Mayor Yvonne Spicer told members that she was concerned about the plan given the current situation.

"I'd be remiss if I did not state my concern about this property (and) focusing on it at this very moment," she said. "Not that it isn't important, but at this very moment I think there are some competing priorities. We need to look at some situations with our schooling, but not get locked into one option."

School Committee member Jessica Barnhill, who was newly elected in November, had said she was vying for a spot on the board partly to advocate for a south side school. She represents District 8, where there are currently no schools.

"The timing is not ideal, but this is forward thinking," she said.

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