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Consultant recommends new PK–1 school as the most practical path; committee hears $120M–$287M master‑plan options
Summary
JCJ Architects presented six master‑plan options to the Tewksbury School Committee and recommended Option 2 — building a new PK–1 school and phasing code/system upgrades — with projected option totals ranging roughly from $183 million to $287 million and an estimated $121 million for system‑level upgrades across the district.
Douglas Roberts of JCJ Architects told the Tewksbury School Committee on March 18 that a multi‑disciplinary facility review and five months of community visioning produced a set of ‘apples‑to‑apples’ test fits for six master‑plan options. "We were assigned five specific tasks," Roberts said, summarizing the study and the MSBA process his team used.
The presentation highlighted two elementary schools — Dewing and Heath Brook — as having the most urgent building needs. Roberts said both sites face electrical‑capacity shortfalls for modern classroom technology and identified other system issues including boilers, roofing, fire‑protection gaps and generators. He warned that some systems are near the end of their useful life and that any significant alteration may trigger code‑driven upgrades, including sprinkler systems where they do not exist.
Why it matters: JCJ modeled each option using Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) space templates and a gross‑up factor so comparisons reflect both educational spaces and the…
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