By Ethan Forman
DANVERS — A near-unanimous Town Meeting voted to approve the nearly $80 million renovation of Danvers High last night, a project that officials said should provide for students for the next half-century.
Last night's vote in the multipurpose room of Holten Richmond Middle School was the final step in an approval process that has been years in the making. The vote happened after an hour's worth of debate.
"This is a milestone, it's a very important milestone," Town Manager Wayne Marquis said. "We have four years of work ahead of us."
The project will be paid for within the town's budget, without the need to return to voters for an override of Proposition 21âÑ2's levy limits. A maximum grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority of $42 million on school-related portions of the building was also an enticement some Town Meeting members could not resist.
Precinct 5 Town Meeting member John Filippone likened the state grant to the government's Cash for Clunkers program that spurred car sales over the summer.
"We are getting rid of a clunker of a building," Filippone said.
"I'm looking forward to my 10-year-old grandson going to this nice, new high school," said Precinct 8 Town Meeting member Bill Nicholson.
The plan calls for a 250,000-square-foot addition and renovation to the school, which dates back nearly 50 years. Architects plan to reorient the building's facade away from Cabot Road to Burley Street.
The new and improved Danvers High will house approximately 1,000 students and include a new three-story science wing, the renovation of a 1960s academic wing, new cafeteria and library spaces, and a revamped 550-seat auditorium.
To save money, officials eliminated a balcony in the auditorium, renovation of the community's Vye gym, new fields and a stadium fix. The project will begin in the fall with students moving to the Dunn Wing at Danvers High and wrap up in September 2013.
The roll call vote, in which 106 Town Meeting members called out "yes" and just five said "no," ensured the project will move ahead, given the need for the plan to pass by a two-thirds majority.
"Reluctantly, yes," said former Selectman Mark Zuberek, an outspoken Town Meeting member who never mounted a campaign against the proposal.
Instead, the engineer for 37 years said the town was at a "fish or cut bait" moment, praising its financing plan but also raising concerns about some of its assumptions, while questioning the need for the "superintendent's 30-plus-office complex."
He warned the town had to be careful with how it treats $12 million worth of contingencies in the project budget.
"We must treat these allowances as our own money," Zuberek said. Zuberek then called for Town Meeting to end debate and move the question. It did, but not before Nicholson called for a roll-call vote.
The town plans to pay for the project by borrowing money and shoehorning debt costs within the town's operating budget. Officials plan to keep borrowing costs around 5 percent of the town's budget.
Taxpayers are not going to foot the entire bill. A grant of up to $42 million from the Massachusetts School Building Authority will pay for education-eligible costs. The cost to the town will be just under $38 million.
A 30-year repayment schedule, a high school/middle school stabilization account, the expectation the project will come in under budget and keeping an eye on future debt will help the town afford the project, said Selectman Keith Lucy, whose spreadsheets have helped the town gauge its spending well into the future.
Town Meeting member Bob Ryan said the project may prove too expensive for the town to bear, and "we will be faced with annual (debt) exclusions" of Prop. 21âÑ2. The renovation of the high school has been debated for the past dozen years.
In 2000, Town Meeting approved a $60 million middle school/high school renovation, but voters rejected an override to pay for the plan in a call to segregate middle- and high-schoolers and rehab the Holten Richmond building.
In 2003, a renovation of what is now Holten Richmond Middle School on Conant Street also failed on override at the ballot box, but the town switched gears and decided to pay for the project within its budget.
Precinct 3 Town Meeting member Sandy Lane said she opposed two overrides for school projects but likes how the town is going about things now.
"The question is ... can we afford not to do this project," Lane said.
Some cited the success of the award-winning Holten Richmond Middle School project as a justification for the high school project. It opened in 2005 with a modern design at the back and a reuse of the facade of two old school buildings at the front. That project was on time and under budget.
School votes have a history of stirring controversy in Danvers, said Town Archivist Richard Trask, a Town Meeting member in Precinct 7.
"This is a real historic vote," Trask said, "and a credit to all the work people have done."
Staff writer Ethan Forman can be reached at 978-338-2673 or eforman@salemnews.com.
