The details of the major renovation planned for the Pollard Middle School will soon begin to take shape after the selection of a Cambridge firm to lead the design efforts for the planned $300+ million project.
The HMFH architectural firm was chosen from among three finalists after an extensive review by both the town and the Massachusetts School Building Authority. It was the MSBA that ultimately selected HMFH, which has completed more than two dozen MSBA projects, to produce a plan by late fall for the next iteration of the 67-year-old school.
“We don’t know exactly what this building will be,” town Director of Design and Construction Hank Haff said at the May 20 School Committee meeting while listing the next steps in the process. “There are many options that need to be looked at.”
“We want to make sure that it’s a very public process, that people’s voices are heard,” Haff said. “The aspirations and the opportunities are really open at this point.”
That said, the canvas is far from blank. The School Committee has spent more than a decade working with the school administration on a master plan that involves three schools and an estimated $462 million in expected spending over the next dozen or so years.
Broadly, that plan will first renovate and expand Pollard so that it can revert from a Grade 7-8 school to a Grade 6-8 school by the start of the 2031-32 school year.
That would free up the current Grade 6 center at the High Rock School to become an elementary school. High Rock would first be used to house Mitchell School students displaced while the town tears down the current Mitchell building, which opened in 1950 and will be replaced by a new, three-section elementary school.
The new Mitchell would potentially open in 2037, with High Rock then becoming the town’s sixth elementary school.
That plan must first pass muster with the MSBA for Needham to be eligible for state reimbursements that could total more than $60 million, or more than 20% of the estimated $314 million cost of the Pollard work.
There’s also the matter of the town’s voters needing to approve a Proposition 2½ override at an election expected to take place in November 2026.
“There are many unknowns at this point, and I don’t think we need to focus on the cost right now,” Haff said at the School Committee meeting. “Right now, we need to focus on the educational program which defines the school and defines the important parts of how Needham educates its children.”
What’s feasible
The MSBA template contains a series of nine “Modules,” or phases of the project. The selection of HMFH as the design firm brings the project into Module 3 and the need to complete a feasibility study.
This requires the town to prove that its preferred option of doing the project as an “addition/renovation” is the best way to move forward; that the Grade 6-8 configuration is appropriate; that Pollard can’t simply be renovated; and that there are no other sites in Needham that could be used for total new construction.
“During this period, the designer will be looking at the educational plan for the new building,” Haff said after the School Committee meeting. “The school department and the principals have been working hard to identify what their priorities are and we’re assembling all the material for the design team to jumpstart that process.”
Haff said the design team will evaluate the condition of the existing building and offer proof of its deficiencies. It also will come up with “space summary requirements” to identify how many of each category of rooms are necessary in the new building — how many standard classrooms, how many science classrooms, any extended learning areas and other space requirements.
Haff said the MSBA requirements for middle schools are that standard classrooms be 900 square feet and science classrooms be 1,400 square feet. “When you look at the existing building, the majority of the classrooms are 700 square feet,” he said. “That’s clearly deficient to contemporary standards. During their analysis, they will identify those and other shortcomings.
“All of the deficiencies that they will have identified will prove in short order that the building can’t just be renovated.”
The town must also prove that the current 15-acre site on Harris Avenue is the best option. “The only alternate site that is identified within jurisdictional boundaries of the town is the parking lot area of DiFazio (Park),” said Haff, who described DeFazio as “constrained” and highly unlikely to be a viable option.
These and many other issues will be reviewed and discussed in what both Haff and School Committee member Alisa Skatrud say will be a highly public process. Skatrud, the School Committee’s liaison to the Permanent Public Building Committee for the project, said she supported the choice of HMFH partly because of its track record for successful community engagement in addition to the quality of their design work.
“I’ve had an opportunity to be in some of the spaces that they have designed, and they not only looked beautiful but also felt functional, cohesive,” she said. “It was just space that worked.”
“And then their presentation, particularly around community engagement, was very strong.”
Skatrud said the committee will work hard to engage the public in the process and is cognizant that summer in Needham is not always the most conducive time for that sort of outreach effort.
“Community consensus and communication is crucial, and we certainly are expecting it to be robust and complete,” Skatrud said. “I really, really hope that people receive notices and look out for opportunities to be engaged. We will do our best to make sure that those opportunities are widely publicized.”
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