New Groton schools said to be more cost-effective
Groton — New elementary school buildings would provide greater value to the community, with no increase in the price of the school plan approved two years ago, according to schools Superintendent Michael Graner.
At a referendum slated for next month, voters will decide whether or not to approve a revision to the Groton 2020 plan to instead build two elementary schools, rather than convert the town’s two middle schools into elementary schools. Graner,
meanwhile, said in a recent interview that building new schools is the more cost-efficient option.
Two years ago, Groton voters approved a $184.5 million proposal to build one new consolidated middle school on the former Merritt Farm property next to Fitch High School and renovate the existing middle schools into two elementary schools. After the town notified the state Department of Administrative Services School Construction Grants and Review of the outcome of the vote, DAS officially approved the school plan in a letter and confirmed the state’s commitment to pay $100 million of the $184.5 million project, Graner said. The Permanent School Building Committee then began work to design the schools.
But DAS later notified the town that its guidelines had changed, opening up the possibility for a new plan for the elementary schools, he said. If school officials could prove it was more cost efficient to build new schools than to do renovations, DAS would consider approving the same funding. Architects, the Permanent School Building Committee and school officials met last summer with DAS officials in Hartford to discuss the cost estimates of renovating the two schools compared to the cost of building new schools.
“It turns out that building new was more cost-efficient,” Graner said.
At the same project cost of $184.5 million for a middle school and two elementary schools, the town found that it could get more value with new elementary buildings than renovated ones, he said. The new buildings would last longer, be energy-efficient and feature modern technology. They also could be built specifically for elementary school children.
“For the same price we could build modern, energy-efficient schools that are designed to meet the learning needs of young children and those buildings are anticipated to last from 45 to 50 years,” Graner said. The demolition costs of the two existing middle schools is included in the project cost, he said.
Converting middle schools into elementary schools would require extensive alterations to the buildings, such as re-sizing classrooms for elementary students and adding bathrooms to classrooms designated for early childhood learning, he explained. Plus, the expected life for a renovated building is 25 years.
In August, the town received permission from DAS to build new elementary schools, Graner said. But since the referendum language approved by voters in 2016 says the existing middle school buildings will be renovated into like-new elementary schools, the town will need approval to revise the language to specify that new elementary schools would instead be built on the sites of the existing middle schools. There is no change to the original plan to build a new consolidated middle school adjacent to the high school.
The Town Council has approved the change and, as long as the Representative Town Meeting doesn’t veto it, the referendum will be held Dec. 11.
Graner pointed out that if the town had to renovate the two middle schools into elementary schools, it would have to wait for the new consolidated middle school to be completed in the fall of 2020. The plan to build new elementary schools on the sites of the middle schools, adjacent to where the existing buildings stand, allows the town to build all three schools at the same time.
The anticipated opening date for the new elementary schools would be fall of 2021, he said.
Lynn, Mass. (AP) — Think of Todd Gieg as a master of the miniature — a man who uses old maps and photographs, special paints and infinite patience to recreate the Lynn of 1895, down to the detail of faux ivy crawling up the sides of buildings and painstakingly-recreated signs.
A photographer by trade, Gieg dreamed up the diorama project that has become his passion and pursuit in 2004 shortly after moving to Lynn with his wife, Amy Bertino, and their son, Max.
Lanky and quick with a smile, Gieg is a self-described collector of all things unusual who has filled his Lydia Pinkham building shop with oddities like the giant metal letters from a Boston sign and a Rube Goldberg-like device once used to wash fashionable hats.
Buying a basic model railroad kit for his son when Max was a boy prompted Gieg to dig into the history of the former narrow gauge railroads that crisscrossed the region and carried freight and passengers along Lynn and Revere’s waterfront.
“I said, “Why don’t I build a railroad that actually existed?’”
He started attending miniature model shows and learned about the detailed, ultra-realistic models crafted by George Sellios who excels in replicating late 19th- and early-20th century streetscapes, railroad sidings and other settings.
Gieg dug into the Lynn Museum’s photography collection and pored over old city maps to begin to layout his Lynn of yesteryear on a 4-foot-by-16-foot surface spanning four custom-built tables.
As his research piled up and his modeling skills improved, he began to sketch in detail ideas and designs for his diorama. The more than 50 models he built for the diorama over the years ranging from small boats and coal barges to a “gasometer” storage tank and rows of buildings lining Market Street are intricate in their detail and precise, Gieg insists, in their historically-accurate placement based on maps and plot plans.
Long before the Lynnway existed, the railroad and a long-gone byway called Sea Street paralleled the 1890s Lynn waterfront. Working boats plied narrow inlets where mills and coal terminals operated next to docks for sailing ships.
Dirt paths and roads snaked along the waterfront and Market Street was lined with buildings topped by signs advertising “J.P. Coats Six Cord” and “Redpaths.”
Many of the diorama’s structures, ships and trains are assembled from modeling kits, but Gieg “scratch built” almost a third of the diorama’s buildings, relying on photographs and jury-rigged materials to replicate 120-year-old homes and shops.
“I have been successful at this because it is pleasurable. It’s a real stay-in-the-moment experience,” he said.
He used special paints and resins to experiment with coloring and texture until he was satisfied he had created realistic-looking water. Jars marked with granular mixtures and labeled “fine turf green” and “coarse turf” provide him with the material he needs to recreate grass.
His Lynn waterfront is just the first chapter in a project that he said will bring to life on a small scale the 1895 coastline north of Boston from Lynn to East Boston.
He started a Kickstarter campaign under the title “The Narrow Gauge: Boston’s Forgotten Railroad,” with the goal of raising $75,000 to pay for materials and meet other costs as he expands the diorama.
Lynn Museum/Lynn Arts Director Drew Russo has spoken with Gieg about exhibiting the Lynn diorama in the Union and Washington streets museum.
“He has generously offered to loan us the diorama for an extended period of time and we are currently working with him on how to best display it,” Russo said.
Gieg envisions the diorama as teaching tool alternately fascinating adults and children alike and educating them about a time and an allbut-lost way of life.
“I want it shared,” he said.