Schools

North Reading School Building Project Line Items Over Budget

The building project has made progress, but some line items have exceeded original budget estimates.

The North Reading School Building Project recently held their Groundbreaking Ceremony at the middle school and the project continues to make progress. However, throughout the last few weeks, the Secondary Schools Building Committee learned that some line items have exceeded original budget estimates.

Additional progress has been made on the project since the last update we posted. According to Selectmen Chairman Sean Delaney, there is an architect, owner's project manager and construction manager on board and they have met with the Community Planning Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals and Conservation Commission. The construction design documents and drawings are 60 percent complete.

"The next milestone will be 90 percent next month, in January the construction documents will be 100 percent complete," Delaney said.

Find out what's happening in Readingwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Approximately $6 million has been expended so far.

According to Delaney, as the construction documents evolved, specific line items exceeded the original cost estimates. The cost drivers have primarily been site development issues such as unsuitable soil and EPA/DEP regulations, increased steel needed to reinforce the roof, the HVAC system and the "heating up" of the construction market.

Find out what's happening in Readingwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Over the last couple of weeks, the design development and construction team came up with various alternative solutions to resolve the issues. A few of those solutions were voted on at the SSBC meeting Tuesday.

According to Superintendent Kathleen Willis, several options were discussed, but few voted on. Many of the items will need to go through a significant vetting process before the committee makes any decisions, Willis said.

Some of them items that were voted on last week are as follows:

  • Under the site/demo category, the committee voted to delete the pre-cast seat walls that surround the planting beds on the site to save a total of $91,000.
  • In the same category, originally there was $450,000 allocated for a variety of planting around the campus. The committee voted to take $200,000 away from that specific budget. The committee hopes that will not affect the amount of plants on the campus, but rather that the plants may now be seedlings instead of mature plants.
  • In the structural category, the parapets or "bump ups" on the roof of the middle school were eliminated, saving $290,000.
  • In the same category, roof screens around the mechanical structures associated with the HVAC system were eliminated, saving $100,000.
  • In the architectural category, pop ups on both ends of the high school were eliminated from the budget, saving $96,600. However, the pop up on the roof in the middle of the high school will remain as it was a prominent design feature, Willis said. 
  • In the general category, the roof over the pathway from an art classroom to Main Street was eliminated from the budget saving $198,000. The pathway will still be there, but the roof will not.

Willis said that there are still several discussions to be had regarding the mechanical and electrical categories, especially the HVAC system, but no decisions have been made at this time. The next Secondary School Building Committee meeting will be on Dec. 4 at 5:30 p.m. in the middle school library.

The superintendent stressed that the educational programs will not be affected by these changes. The goal remains to keep the project on schedule and on budget, she said.

The final estimated cost of the project should be available by the end of the year.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here