OPM selection subcommittee advances RFS for Medford High project, votes to expand committee

Jenny Graham, member of the OPM selection subcommittee, led a remote meeting Tuesday to review a draft request-for-services (RFS) the district will use to hire an owner’s project manager (OPM) under the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) module 2 process.

“This is module 2 of MSBA, which is where we hire our team that’s actually going to help do the lion’s share of the work,” Graham said, outlining the two core tasks for module 2: hiring the OPM first and then the designer.

The nut graf: The committee reviewed MSBA’s RFS template, discussed required procedural steps (MSBA review, advertising in the central register, a newspaper and COMMBUYS, and a shortlisted interview process), evaluated proposed scoring and finalist procedures, and approved two committee motions: to expand the OPM selection committee from three to five voting members and to forward the revised RFS to the full building committee for input and approval.

Discussion and RFS details

Committee members walked through the MSBA-provided RFS template and owner-specific language the district staff drafted, including background, project objectives and evaluation criteria. The draft describes the Medford High School campus as an aging facility that the district is planning to renovate or replace; it notes enrollment projections and program needs that the OPM should consider, including vocational/Chapter 74 programs and potential co-location of therapeutic or specialized programs (Curtis Tufts was named as an example of a program…