Five years after it was first submitted, the Massachusetts School Building Authority has approved a plan to replace a rundown school in North Adams. Greylock Elementary, off Route 2 just west of downtown, was shuttered earlier this year as part of a citywide school consolidation and grade reconfiguration effort. On July 22nd, the North Adams City Council will hold a special meeting to hear Mayor Jennifer Macksey’s borrowing plan for the city’s share of the $65 million project. It comes as the second-term mayor continues to push for another major municipal investment: a long-awaited new public safety facility.
MACKSEY: The MSBA has a series of steps that you have to go through. So, our step four was to get the project itself approved, and the project is a new school on the Greylock property. For the last, I'll say, before my time, maybe three to five years, the city as a team have been evaluating whether we renovate Brayton [Elementary], renovate Greylock, do we keep both schools open, do we close one, and all of that. But at the end of the day, with all of our data, we've come to the conclusion that two things need to happen. The first is we're going to implement grade span schools this year, which will make Brayton School right now pre-K to 2, because we've had to close Greylock because of not only declining enrollment, but the facility itself. Colegrove [Park Elementary] will be 3-6, and Drury High School will be 7- 12. In addition to that, grade span schools was the first step. The second step was to really evaluate the facilities at Brayton and at Greylock. When I say facilities, it's not only about the buildings themselves, but also about the grounds, and after much analysis and much information and data gathering and visioning and looking at our educational plan, it's been determined that Greylock is the best site to invest our dollars in. Now, with that came, do we renovate the building, or do we build new? When we looked at the numbers, we felt it was a better investment for us to build a whole new school. So, we went to the MSBA, and they've been with us through this whole process, and I think two weeks ago Wednesday, they approved the project itself. So now we enter what we call mod five, which is the financial feasibility aspect, and we will bring a borrowing order to the city council and we will showcase the project. And then from there, we will have two community sessions in August, and our hope is the city council supports the project and then we will go to vote in the community.
WAMC: What is the expected dollar amount of this overall project, and what are you trying to borrow here?
So, the overall project is $65 million. We're estimating that we'll get 80% reimbursed of eligible costs with a share to the city of about $23 million.
And how are you expecting this to impact budgeting in North Adams?
Well, I think- I mean, realistically, it's an investment in our future. We will see a slight increase in taxes, which we'll get into throughout all these informational meetings, but it's really an investment in our future, and regardless, we have to do something with the building. So, if we don't do the project, then we're left paying the whole bill to demo this building or tend to this building, and I really don't want to leave it vacant. So, our long-term plan is hopefully this budget, this project, gets approved at Greylock, and then we turn Brayton into an educational hub, whether it be for administrative offices or specialized programming or partnering with the surrounding colleges for more space with them or even exploring affordable housing. Who knows, that piece is yet to be determined. But if we're not successful with this project, there still is an impact because we're so stuck dealing with these buildings.
Parallel to the school project, you've also been pushing for another major infrastructure investment for North Adams, a new public safety facility dealing with the decrepit former home of both the police and fire department. Are you expecting to take on both of these projects at the same time?
That all depends on funding. I'm still really advocating to get some money out of the state to help me with the public safety building. As you know, [former state] Senator [Adam] Hinds had earmarked some money for us, but it never got funded. So, I've been speaking with [State Representative John] Barrett and [state] Senator [Paul] Mark about reinvigorating that sponsorship. So, it's really going to be a timing game, Josh, as to when we had get engineering money. The good thing is that we kind of have decided on a space, we own the space, but we need to know what it's going to cost to turn it into a public safety complex. So right now, the priority is the school project, because the police department is set, we're making some small repairs continually in the fire department, but it's something that can't be forgotten. It's just the timing of where we're going to put our dollars, and right now, we don't want to lose this 80%, I call it a grant, from the MSBA.
