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Council hearing examines $5 million request to start Madison Park feasibility study, officials outline timeline and cost uncertainty
Summary
City and Boston Public Schools officials asked the Ways and Means Committee for $5,000,000 to hire an OPM and architect for a feasibility study and schematic design for Madison Park Technical Vocational High School; officials said final construction costs won’t be known until schematic design and bidding, with past estimates ranging widely.
Boston — Officials from the Public Facilities Department and Boston Public Schools told the City Council Ways and Means Committee on July 15 that they are requesting $5,000,000 to begin a feasibility study and schematic design for Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, the city’s only comprehensive vocational high school.
Del Stanislaus, chief of capital planning for Boston Public Schools, said Madison Park serves about 1,000 students and that the project entered the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) eligibility period on July 1, 2026. "Today, we are here before you requesting $5,000,000 to bring on an OPM and architect to conduct a feasibility study through schematic design," Stanislaus said.
The feasibility work will include the MSBA-required preliminary design, community engagement and educational-program confirmation. Carlton Jones of the Public Facilities Department said the appropriation would allow the city to procure an owner’s project manager and architect, and to engage consultants (for example hazardous-materials or other specialty studies) as needed.
Councilors pressed officials on cost and schedule. Brian McLaughlin, senior project manager for PFD, described a stepwise timeline that officials presented at the hearing: complete remaining eligibility tasks in August 2026; secure MSBA capital-pipeline approval likely in October 2026; select consultants through late 2027; conduct feasibility and schematic design work through fall 2028; submit schematic design to the MSBA in fall 2028; and — if MSBA approves and the council later appropriates funds — aim for early construction packages in 2030 and project completion around 2033.
On cost, officials cautioned that prior, informal estimates have varied widely. Jones said the city had discussed numbers "in the order of magnitude between" several hundred million dollars to as high as previously reported speculative figures; McLaughlin said an $800 million figure had been a high-end scenario in past back-of-the-envelope work but that a reliable project budget will be produced only after schematic design and professional estimating. "You won't truly know how much it's going to cost until it's actually bid," McLaughlin said.
Officials also described MSBA reimbursement mechanics. McLaughlin said the district typically realizes higher effective reimbursement on accelerated-repair projects and that a commonly cited base reimbursement for district projects is roughly 60 percent, but that core program projects can be affected by MSBA cost-per-square-foot caps.
Councilors asked whether prior consultant work (Perkins+Will, Leftfield, ANAM Architects) could be reused; PFD said some prior study work exists and would be valuable but that the MSBA requires its selection processes for an owner’s project manager and designer. Carlton Jones said the city would provide councilors with records of prior consultant spending on Madison Park upon request.
No vote was taken at the hearing. Chair Ben Weber said he plans to bring the dockets for council consideration at the next council meeting and encouraged councilors to submit follow-up questions through the chair.
The project team said they will conduct the MSBA-required public engagement as part of the feasibility process, and that schematic design will include cost, schedule and anticipated reimbursement figures to be presented to the council before any final appropriation.
