The long anticipated start of construction of the new Marshall Middle School on Brookline Street began this week, as heavy construction vehicles began preparing the site for a summer of pile driving activity and Lynn elected officials and educators huddled together to mark the construction with a ground breaking ceremony.
The new 1,100 student middle school, which is slated to serve sixth, seventh and eighth graders beginning in September 2016, will be the first new school built in the city in 15 years, but Superintendent of Schools Catherine Latham is hoping that this is just the beginning of a trend in Lynn.
“I am thrilled that the new Marshall Middle School is finally under construction,” said Latham, at the ground breaking. “I hope that it signals the start of a long line of new schools for the city of Lynn.”
State Senator Thomas McGee, who was on hand to celebrate the start of construction noted, “This is a tremendous opportunity for the city and a chance of the students who will be in this building to reach their full potential.”
The new school will include 182,000 square feet of educational space, which will be built atop a system of piers. The Walsh Brothers Construction of Boston is charged with building the new school and the project schedule calls for exterior construction of the school to continue into the summer of 2015 and interior construction and finish work beginning in the fall of 2015.
The new school, which was supported by a voter referendum question last October, cost a total of $92 million, with the city receiving 80-percent of “allowable costs” under the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s formula for school constructions costs.
The “allowable costs formula means that the city will actually pay about $40 million toward the complete cost of the project.