Salem school project team narrows site, circulation and program issues; finance group approves two invoices

Design and district staff told the Salem Public Schools project meeting that the campus is far more constrained than it appears and outlined several design options while transportation consultants described congestion and access limits that will shape any new building.

The presentation showed the campus totals about 61.6 acres but—after easements, steep ledge and other exclusions—only about 16.7 acres are readily buildable. Vinod Kalike, senior transportation planner and traffic engineer with VHP, said the site’s current circulation is a one‑way spine that forces long detours for drivers and concentrates roughly 600–700 vehicles into a roughly 30– to 40‑minute morning arrival window at a single access point near the Highland Avenue signal, creating substantial queuing and friction for drop‑off and bus operations.

Those constraints, combined with program work the district is completing, are driving the range of options the design team presented. The team is preparing draft educational programs for two scenarios: a 1,000‑student high school (grades 9–12) and a 1,500‑student combined 7–12 model (about 1,600 projected students in future scenarios, compared with a current 965). The existing high school building was listed at roughly 411,000 gross square feet (not including an approximately 82,100‑square‑foot auto shop); preliminary, unvetted program totals are in the high 400,000s to nearly 500,000 square feet.

Project staff emphasized the phase in which the team is working—preliminary evaluation of alternatives—and repeatedly said no decision is required now, only that the team uncover benefits, challenges, phasing and rough order‑of‑magnitude costs for each option. The design concepts shown ranged from renovation‑only (retaining and updating the existing building) to renovation with additions and several new‑build layouts. Most schemes envision 4‑story buildings; one option presented a 5‑story footprint to create more program area on a smaller site footprint.

Traffic and access options under consideration include keeping the single main access to Wilson Street, adding a second two‑way internal circulation spine through the campus, and exploring a curb cut or signalized access to Highland Avenue. Kalike said a Highland Avenue access would likely be most useful for exits or bus loading unless it could be signalized with turn lanes; Highland is a state road and any curb cut or sidewalk work on Highland requires MassDOT review and permits. The team also noted mode split data provided by the district: roughly 50% of peak arrivals are parent drop‑offs, about 30% are buses and roughly 10% are walking or biking; about 244 staff were plotted for the high school alone in the consultant maps.

District and committee members pressed for specific operational priorities that should drive the choice of schemes: separate identities and entries for middle and high school programs; after‑hours public access to shared facilities (auditorium, gym, cafeteria) without opening secure academic wings; improved multimodal access and bike/walk accommodations; and energy and resiliency performance. Several committee members and staff said the project should be evaluated against a short list of criteria the committee will draft and share—examples discussed included cost, impact to educational program, construction duration, after‑hours access/security, and energy performance (including net‑zero readiness). The design team said it will pick a small set of representative schemes from the presented categories for more detailed cost and life‑cycle energy modeling.

On programming and reimbursement, the team reminded the committee that some requested spaces fall outside the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) template and might not be reimbursable; those items will be tracked separately so the city can see what the MSBA may not fund. The consultants reported receipt of multiple technical studies now on file, including geotechnical, hazmat (field sampling), acoustics, code and an environmental site assessment; the hazmat/abatement report included cost estimates.

The meeting also covered outreach and next steps: an educator survey was distributed with a Feb. 1 deadline, a caregiver survey pending translation into Spanish and Portuguese, and a student survey being finalized. The team said it has a call scheduled with MassDOT next week to introduce the project and discuss Highland Avenue corridor work; the meeting record shows a vote on project direction is planned for Feb. 3.

Finance and procedural notes: the project’s finance working group reported approval of two consultant invoices—Accenture’s December invoice for $20,331.25 and Perkins (architect firm) November–December invoice for $121,500—and the committee recorded that both were approved. The meeting concluded with a request that working‑group members identify chairs (one volunteer: Paul for the design working group) and produce the committee’s top five evaluation criteria in the coming days.

Next steps the consultants and district cited include refining the educational program with input from Friday working‑group meetings, selecting a short list of schemes for detailed cost and energy analysis, circulating the technical reports and program comparisons to committee members, and continuing coordination with MassDOT and MSBA as required.