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Officials say renovation estimate for the Coming School could top $100 million; school committee asks for city follow-up on warming-center commitments
Summary
Infrastructure staff told the joint Somerville City Council and School Committee on March 31 that an architect-led study is needed to produce a credible renovation cost estimate for the Coming School and that a full renovation could meaningfully exceed $100 million.
City infrastructure staff told the joint City Council and School Committee meeting on March 31 that estimating renovation costs for the Coming School requires paid consultant work and that a plausible total renovation could be in the neighborhood of $100 million.
Richard Raesch, director of infrastructure and asset management, said the Coming School is a "peculiar" building with multiple accessibility (ADA), HVAC/MEP and code issues that require architectural and engineering assessment. He recommended hiring a consultant team to develop a renovation plan and a cost estimate that could be used at budget time and then, if funded, advance into the capital improvement process.
When asked whether the city could fund a consultant now, Raesch said the typical funding source for such studies is the Infrastructure & Asset Management annual operating budget (professional technical services). He said fiscal 2025 operating funds are largely spent and the earliest likely timing to start the consultant work would be fiscal 2026 (starting July). He also cautioned that construction-cost volatility since the pandemic makes any early estimate uncertain; Raesch said a $100 million estimate —9give or take $50 million— would "not surprise us" given the repairs and upgrades likely required.
Separately, school committee members raised a related operational concern: at the September 9 school committee meeting the district allowed the Coming School to be used as a warming center for people experiencing homelessness with an expectation that the city would develop a memorandum of understanding and perform basic work to stop the building from deteriorating (for example, repairs to eliminate leaks). School Committee members asked the administration to provide a clear status update on what work has been done and the plan to meet those commitments; the committee asked that the topic be brought back for discussion at a future meeting.
The committee left the renovation-cost order in committee to await a consultant estimate and placed the warming-center follow-up as a requested future agenda item for administration response.
