Danvers High School will serve 1,000 students once the addition and renovation project is finished in 2013. The project will be completed in phases: 159,484 square feet of the school will be renovated, a 90,308 square foot addition will be built, and parts of the school that have structural problems will be demolished. The school will be 248,325 square feet when the project is complete. The MSBA is funding 56.11% of eligible costs or up to $41.9 million. The construction bids for the project came in approximately $11.6 million below estimates.
“I am pleased to be here to participate in this groundbreaking,” said Treasurer Cahill. “We found the most cost effective way to solve the educational and structural problems at Danvers High School while saving the town’s taxpayers the expense of a new school.”
“Although ground is being broken today, the MSBA has already started paying for its share of the project at Danvers High School,” stated Katherine Craven, Executive Director of the MSBA. “Our payments total more than $1.6 million to date.”
“Congratulations to the Town of Danvers and the MSBA for their outstanding partnership in addressing the needed improvements and additions to Danvers High School. Once complete, this project will have resolved the structural issues identified at the high school in the most fiscally responsible manner,” said State Sen. Frederick Berry.
The MSBA strives to find the right-sized, most fiscally responsible and educationally appropriate solutions to create safe and sound learning environments. The MSBA is committed to protecting the taxpayer’s dollar by improving the school building grant process and avoiding the mistakes of the past in the funding and construction of school facilities. The MSBA has reformed the Commonwealth’s formerly rampant and unsustainable program, which had accumulated $11 billion in debt. In its six year history, the MSBA has made $7.3 billion in reimbursements to cities, towns and regional school districts for school construction projects. These timely payments have saved municipalities over $2.9 billion in avoided local interest costs and have provided much needed cash flow to communities in these difficult economic times.
