Millis building committee narrows options, leans toward AR 4A as preferred school solution
January 01, 2025 | Town of Millis, Norfolk County, Massachusetts
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The Millis School Building Committee on Wednesday, Dec. 11, reviewed educational-program comparisons of multiple renovation and addition options and indicated a preference for option AR 4A — a larger reconfiguration that would meet Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) classroom-size standards — while agreeing to narrow the choices presented to the public at upcoming forums.
Committee members, school administrators and the project team from Vertex walked through how each option maps the core educational program into existing and proposed building “containers.” Consultant Chris (project presenter) and other members of the design team showed that renovation-only options (R1, R2 and R3) and the smaller add/reno options (AR 5 and AR 6) generally leave many classrooms undersized for MSBA guidelines, while AR 4A would reconfigure and add space to bring all classrooms closer to target sizing.
Why it matters: Committee members and educators said undersized classrooms and limited collaborative and special-education spaces are a current problem that will worsen with projected enrollment growth. That program shortfall is the principal reason the MSBA invited the town into the facilities review process and is central to whether the state will reimburse part of construction costs.
Most of the meeting focused on a slide-based “container” exercise that assigned core program elements — classrooms, science labs, special-education space, teacher planning/collaboration rooms — to the footprint of each option. The project team and school administrators said AR 5 would add a STEM wing and AR 6 would add a new gym and repurpose the old gym for STEM; both would improve the science program but would not resolve overcrowding and many undersized general-classroom spaces. By contrast, AR 4A would build a new middle-school wing and demolish an older wing to allow reconfiguration that meets more educational targets, though at a higher overall project cost.
“The teacher collaboration space was a large element that’s missing,” the project presenter said while reviewing the R3 results, emphasizing that some options fill program “containers” without improving the quality or size of many rooms. Bob (project staff) told the committee the renovation and smaller addition options “don’t address the phys ed, adaptive PE and things like that,” and that many existing rooms exceed MSBA guideline counts: “There are 17 regular classrooms [on the first floor]; 6 of those currently are overcrowded… 13 [of 21] on the second floor are overcrowded.”
School administrators and committee members described the educational consequences of undersized rooms and the mixing of middle- and high-school populations under some addition scenarios. Anna, speaking as the middle-school representative, said keeping middle-school students separate from high-school students is a priority: “We really want to keep the littles, the middle levels away from the older kids. They need a different level of support and supervision.” Pat (school administrator) and other educators said AR 6 is preferable to AR 5 among the addition options because the new gym in AR 6 can meet athletic standards and its repurposed space is better located, but both fall short of AR 4A on overall program needs.
Cost and reimbursement: The project team summarized order-of-magnitude costs discussed at the meeting. Renovation-only options were presented in the high-$50 million range for minimal work, R3 around $61–62 million (plus modular costs), AR 5/AR 6 around $82 million construction with total project costs roughly $110–$115 million after soft costs and contingency, and AR 4A a larger project with a building-and-site estimate approaching $100 million and a total project cost projection near $127 million. The team said modular classroom costs (estimated at roughly $2.5–$5 million depending on option) drive higher soft-cost multipliers and lower effective state reimbursement rates for some options.
“Modulars are not something we want to put in and they cost us a lot,” one committee member said; consultants agreed modulars materially increase soft costs and reduce reimbursement percentages. The team also said the state’s reimbursement formulas and caps can make AR 4A relatively more favorable from an effective reimbursement standpoint, even though the gross cost is higher.
Next steps and schedule: Committee members agreed to narrow public presentations to three options — R3 (renovation), AR 6 (preferred add/reno among educators), and AR 4A (the larger reconfiguration) — and to avoid presenting the public with the full list of earlier variants, which committee members said confused voters. The group discussed holding a late-January community forum and targeting a February preferred-option submission for the Project Status Report (PSR) to the MSBA, followed by an April board meeting and a potential funding vote in November 2025 if the process proceeds on that timeline.
Actions left pending: The committee did not take any formal votes. Board business that required a quorum was tabled; invoice approvals and meeting-minute votes were postponed because the committee lacked the four voting members required to act. John Proctor, a nonvoting member who has attended many meetings, urged the committee to present its “best shot” to voters and said, “I want this,” reflecting support among some members for moving a preferred option forward.
The committee asked the project team for three clarifications before a recommendation: more detailed floor plans for the AR 4A gym and adjacent spaces, a clear breakout showing modular costs in the cost-comparison slide, and an estimate of the incremental cost and siting implications for replacement athletic fields if the town pursues a new-build scenario. Mike Groan, the Finance Committee representative who attended as an observer, said he would report back to the FINCOM: “I’m happy to participate as an observer, and I will communicate everything back to the FINCOM.”
The committee set a tentative next meeting for Wednesday, Jan. 22, and asked staff and the consultant team to produce the refined materials for that public presentation and for the committee’s decision process.
Ending: With no quorum present to act on invoices or minutes, the committee adjourned after scheduling follow-up work and asking the design team to prepare the requested clarifications ahead of the January meeting. The public forum and the PSR submission schedule remain the immediate milestones as the Town of Millis continues the MSBA process.
Committee members, school administrators and the project team from Vertex walked through how each option maps the core educational program into existing and proposed building “containers.” Consultant Chris (project presenter) and other members of the design team showed that renovation-only options (R1, R2 and R3) and the smaller add/reno options (AR 5 and AR 6) generally leave many classrooms undersized for MSBA guidelines, while AR 4A would reconfigure and add space to bring all classrooms closer to target sizing.
Why it matters: Committee members and educators said undersized classrooms and limited collaborative and special-education spaces are a current problem that will worsen with projected enrollment growth. That program shortfall is the principal reason the MSBA invited the town into the facilities review process and is central to whether the state will reimburse part of construction costs.
Most of the meeting focused on a slide-based “container” exercise that assigned core program elements — classrooms, science labs, special-education space, teacher planning/collaboration rooms — to the footprint of each option. The project team and school administrators said AR 5 would add a STEM wing and AR 6 would add a new gym and repurpose the old gym for STEM; both would improve the science program but would not resolve overcrowding and many undersized general-classroom spaces. By contrast, AR 4A would build a new middle-school wing and demolish an older wing to allow reconfiguration that meets more educational targets, though at a higher overall project cost.
“The teacher collaboration space was a large element that’s missing,” the project presenter said while reviewing the R3 results, emphasizing that some options fill program “containers” without improving the quality or size of many rooms. Bob (project staff) told the committee the renovation and smaller addition options “don’t address the phys ed, adaptive PE and things like that,” and that many existing rooms exceed MSBA guideline counts: “There are 17 regular classrooms [on the first floor]; 6 of those currently are overcrowded… 13 [of 21] on the second floor are overcrowded.”
School administrators and committee members described the educational consequences of undersized rooms and the mixing of middle- and high-school populations under some addition scenarios. Anna, speaking as the middle-school representative, said keeping middle-school students separate from high-school students is a priority: “We really want to keep the littles, the middle levels away from the older kids. They need a different level of support and supervision.” Pat (school administrator) and other educators said AR 6 is preferable to AR 5 among the addition options because the new gym in AR 6 can meet athletic standards and its repurposed space is better located, but both fall short of AR 4A on overall program needs.
Cost and reimbursement: The project team summarized order-of-magnitude costs discussed at the meeting. Renovation-only options were presented in the high-$50 million range for minimal work, R3 around $61–62 million (plus modular costs), AR 5/AR 6 around $82 million construction with total project costs roughly $110–$115 million after soft costs and contingency, and AR 4A a larger project with a building-and-site estimate approaching $100 million and a total project cost projection near $127 million. The team said modular classroom costs (estimated at roughly $2.5–$5 million depending on option) drive higher soft-cost multipliers and lower effective state reimbursement rates for some options.
“Modulars are not something we want to put in and they cost us a lot,” one committee member said; consultants agreed modulars materially increase soft costs and reduce reimbursement percentages. The team also said the state’s reimbursement formulas and caps can make AR 4A relatively more favorable from an effective reimbursement standpoint, even though the gross cost is higher.
Next steps and schedule: Committee members agreed to narrow public presentations to three options — R3 (renovation), AR 6 (preferred add/reno among educators), and AR 4A (the larger reconfiguration) — and to avoid presenting the public with the full list of earlier variants, which committee members said confused voters. The group discussed holding a late-January community forum and targeting a February preferred-option submission for the Project Status Report (PSR) to the MSBA, followed by an April board meeting and a potential funding vote in November 2025 if the process proceeds on that timeline.
Actions left pending: The committee did not take any formal votes. Board business that required a quorum was tabled; invoice approvals and meeting-minute votes were postponed because the committee lacked the four voting members required to act. John Proctor, a nonvoting member who has attended many meetings, urged the committee to present its “best shot” to voters and said, “I want this,” reflecting support among some members for moving a preferred option forward.
The committee asked the project team for three clarifications before a recommendation: more detailed floor plans for the AR 4A gym and adjacent spaces, a clear breakout showing modular costs in the cost-comparison slide, and an estimate of the incremental cost and siting implications for replacement athletic fields if the town pursues a new-build scenario. Mike Groan, the Finance Committee representative who attended as an observer, said he would report back to the FINCOM: “I’m happy to participate as an observer, and I will communicate everything back to the FINCOM.”
The committee set a tentative next meeting for Wednesday, Jan. 22, and asked staff and the consultant team to produce the refined materials for that public presentation and for the committee’s decision process.
Ending: With no quorum present to act on invoices or minutes, the committee adjourned after scheduling follow-up work and asking the design team to prepare the requested clarifications ahead of the January meeting. The public forum and the PSR submission schedule remain the immediate milestones as the Town of Millis continues the MSBA process.
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