A revised timeline for rebuilding the Pierce School will push back demolition of the school until at least next summer, principal Jamie Yadoff wrote in a letter to families last week.
The long-anticipated rebuild had been set to start next March, but following Town Meeting’s vote to fund the project in May, the town encountered personnel shortages that delayed the execution of some required contracts, School Committee member and Pierce Building Committee Co-Chair Helen Charlupski said in an interview with Brookline.News.
The scheduling change means that teachers and students will spend the entire year at Pierce, instead of relocating during February break as had been previously planned.
Despite the principal’s letter to families, the date of demolition remains unsettled, which makes the anticipated date for completion of the project equally uncertain.
At issue is whether to proceed with demolition before final construction bids are in, as originally planned, or wait to raze the building until after those bids arrive.
Demolishing the building before securing bids for the whole project — the so-called “early release” approach — would put the new Pierce School on track to open in January 2028, a representative from the town’s project management firm said during a Tuesday Pierce Building Committee meeting.
The town took a similar approach for the high school project, but that project exceeded its budget by $32.7 million. In an effort to avoid the same outcome, the Building Commission is scrutinizing whether to go forward with an early release component for Pierce, with a decision expected in October.
If the town instead waits to begin demolition until it knows exactly how much the project will cost, construction would be delayed a year, beginning in May 2025 and ending in late 2028, the project management firm projected.
The early release issue — which emerged when proposed schedules were presented during an August Building Commission meeting — pits the desire to finish the project on time against concerns over the prospect of moving forward without a defined cost.
“There is a benefit to the school community to getting in earlier rather than later,” Pierce Building Committee member Carol Levin said Tuesday. But, “how do you quantify that and weigh that against the financial risk?”
Both approaches may present risks to the town’s bottom line.
Charlupski, who favors the early release option, said one reason it initially appealed to the town is because there is some mystery as to what exists below the building.
“By taking down the building first, you see those conditions” beneath the building, Charlupski said. “So you can then do your documents for the full guaranteed maximum price and be better assured that there won’t be change orders. Change orders are very costly.”
The cost of construction is also expected to increase due to inflation. At Tuesday’s meeting, a representative from the town’s construction firm estimated that the component of the project contemplated under the early release option would cost 6% more if it is delayed a year.
Sentiments on which approach to take appear to mirror those expressed last spring: Those who advocated for the Pierce project have come out in support of the early release option, while some of those who opposed the project consider that approach fiscally irresponsible.
“I don’t think any responsible homeowner would demolish their house before they knew how much it was really going to cost to build a new one,” said Carolyn Thall, who led the SpendSmart Brookline campaign opposing the project.
Pierce parent and Pierce project supporter Marissa Vogt dismissed concerns about the project going over-budget if the early release approach is taken.
“I think the anti-Pierce folks who never wanted to see this project approved in the first place have been trying to drum up controversy,” said Vogt, who is also a Town Meeting member.
During last week’s meeting, Building Commission member George Cole called on the town’s project management firm, LeftField, to prepare a memo justifying the early release option. After reviewing the memo at its October meeting, the Commission will vote on which approach to take.
“I have an intuitive reluctance to [proceed with early release] because I’m risk-adverse with the town’s money,” Cole said in an interview with Brookline.News. “But, in this case, the logic seems to indicate that it could be the correct way to go.”
The Pierce project has been the subject of intense debate since planning for it began in 2018. Last May’s ballot question, which asked voters whether they approved of raising property taxes to fund the $212 project, received 51% of the vote. The small margin led Select Board member and opponent of the project John VanScoyoc to question whether the vote reflected “consensus enough” to move forward with the rebuild. Town Meeting ultimately comfortably approved the project.
Since that vote and following the contracts-related delay, architects have spent the summer gathering information from the building site and preparing designs, renderings of which were shown during Tuesday’s meeting.
The Pierce Building Committee will meet several more times before design documents are due in late November, Charlupski said Tuesday. Dates for those upcoming meetings have not yet been set.