Community Outlook 2021: Westfield hopes Franklin Avenue school design will be approved this spring

Feb. 22, 2021 | Hope Tremblay
hope@thewestfieldnewsgroup.com

The renovation of Franklin Avenue Elementary School (pictured) would include room for students from Abner Gibbs Elementary School, which is more than 100 years old and has numerous issues.
Reminder Publishing file photos

WESTFIELD – The renovation plans for Franklin Avenue Elementary School continue to move forward, with the expectation that a design will receive the thumbs-up this spring from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA).

In January, the Franklin Avenue School Building Committee approved its preliminary design packet (PDP) and sent it to the MSBA for review. It includes several options, and once approved, the project will enter Module 4 of 7 MSBA modules. The MSBA is set to reimburse 70 percent of the project. Costs are not yet known and will be clear once a design is approved and details discussed.

The Building Committee’s preferred plan is to combine Franklin Avenue and Abner Gibbs elementary schools into a single-story building. To make this possible, the city acquired an adjacent property on Franklin Street. A second abutting property is also being eyed for acquisition.

Abner Gibbs is more than 100 years old and has numerous issues, not the least of which is its lack of accessibility for students and staff with physical challenges.

The Building Committee, led by Mayor Donald F. Humason and Westfield Purchasing Director Tammy Tefft, is comprised of city, school, community and parent representatives.

The project began three years ago with a Statement of Interest to the MSBA. Tefft said although there are multiple steps, the MSBA and Owners Project Manager, P3, and the designers, Caolo & Bieniek, have made the lengthy process go smoothly thus far.

“The MSBA has really worked great at making the process as easy as it can be, there are a lot of steps, but they are well documented,” said Tefft. “In addition, our Owner’s Project Manager Dan Pallotta of P3, and our designers Curtis Edgin, Jim Hanifan and Bert Gardner of Caolo & Bieniek, have strategically walked us through each phase to make sure we not only understood where we were in the process but what additional steps we still needed to go through.”

Westfield Public Schools Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski agreed, adding that the Building Committee plays a vital role.

“I have been, and continue to be, impressed by the high level of interest in this project on both the building and visioning committees. The ideas and perspectives shared by parents, community members, elected officials, teachers and school administrators have been invaluable to this process. While we still have a long way to go until this project is completed, we look forward to gathering more community feedback in the coming months,” said Czaporowski.

Tefft said the focus has remained constant throughout the process.

“We have been very lucky, and no surprises have come up, and the vision of the school has continued to be the same as when we first began talking about it, it just has become more documented,” said Tefft. “It has been great to see the involvement of the school community and Westfield as a whole. As the process continues and we develop our preferred designs I envision more and more involvement.”

Project History

Pallotta offered a summary of how the project began, the steps taken so far, and what’s next:

Westfield was invited to the MSBA process by achieving Eligibility Status. MSBA has seven modules of review to ensure that Commonwealth schools are built correct and meet the educational needs of the school district.  Eligibility is Module 1. During Eligibility, the MSBA and the school district determine the school enrollment options and the city council appropriates enough funding for Modules 2, 3 and 4.   

That appropriation was done last year before the pandemic and MSBA waved Westfield to Module 2. In Module 2 the team is assembled to determine the deficiencies and needs of enrollment for the next decades. MSBA and Westfield are studying the renovation and or replacement of the Franklin Avenue School and the Addition/Renovation or new school at Franklin Avenue to accommodate the students of both schools for the next decades.

The first team member to be brought in was the Owner’s Project Manager. The OPM interacts with the MSBA and is independent of the designer and eventually the contractor.

The OPM firm chosen was P-3, Project Planning Professionals from Norwell. P-3 is no stranger to Westfield having served as OPM on the City Hall, Senior Center and Vocational Technical School and other projects.  

The OPM then assists the city in hiring a designer. The designer is an architectural firm selected by the MSBA designer selection panel with Westfield having three of the 11 votes.

The firm of Caolo and Bieniek from Chicopee was selected. Caolo is also no stranger to the city, having designed the Little River Fire Station and other projects. Caolo is fresh off the Easthampton MSBA project with all the relevant knowledge to design a 21st century school.

The MSBA Board voted to invited Westfield into Schematic Design modules 3 and 4.

During Module 3, which is half done right now, the process is split into PDP, or Preliminary Design Program and PSR, or Preliminary Schematic Report. The PDP process began with a Visioning process to determine what the vision of the future and present is for this school. The visioning was a two-month process with school, city and residents participating in round table discussion via Zoom to lay the path forward for the project.   

The designers had multiple tasks during visioning, but most important was the complete review of the existing school to determine deficiencies. The deficiencies are listed in the PDP as well as visioning and a dozen solutions in rough form to determine if the site can accommodate a combined or new school. The designers took the enrollment approvals, visioning and existing conditions to design broad-based solutions. They basically are broken down to “Do Nothing,” “Renovation,” “Addition/Renovation,” or “New.”   Each of those four areas get studied and designed for enrollment for Franklin and Franklin/Gibbs.  

So where is the project now and what is next? The MSBA will respond to the PDP submission, the city will answer the response to the MSBA and off to second half of Module 3. That is called the PSR.

During the PSR the city will decide on a few options to further develop. It will look at programming more closely and the relationship of drop off, busing and exterior learning. The final size of the project will be determined but the final design will not come until Module 4 Schematic Design. During the PDP the city and schools encouraged public participation. MSBA is a big proponent of outreach and the public will have opportunities in PSR and Module 4 to give their opinions or help make the project even better.   

By May school officials expect to be in Module 4 with the Schematic package done by October. All dates subject.

Share this: