Last week, Revere began tearing up what’s left of the Wonderland Greyhound Park — an old greyhound racing track in the city — so it can begin constructing its new high school on the site.
A handful of local news organizations captured the moment the city ‘broke ground’ on the project at the old track. Those reports also mention the cost estimate of Revere’s high school building project — $493 million.
That’s over $150 million less than the recent cost estimate of $659.7 million for Lexington’s high school building project.
Revere, which will host about 2,400 students in its new high school, is building a school for about the same enrollment as Lexington’s new school (2,395 students) and at about the same time.
This led many Lexington residents to ask: Why is our new high school expected to cost so much more?
Timeline
One factor is that the timelines don’t exactly line up. Revere is about a year-and-a-half and two steps ahead of Lexington. They’re in what’s called the “90 percent construction document” (or CD 90%) phase, which is where Lexington is aiming to be in January 2027.
Lexington just completed its schematic design phase. Revere was at that point last winter, Brian Dakin, senior project manager at LeftField, the owner’s project manager on Revere’s high school building project, told LexObserver.
Revere will begin construction on its new school this fall and it’s slated to open by September 2028. Lexington’s project will be completed in 2031.
Because the building projects are in different stages, their contingency budgets (a predetermined sum of money set aside at the beginning of a project to cover unforeseen costs) are very different.
Lexington has about $124.3 million set aside to cover contingencies if needed, including a 10 percent design contingency of about $38.4 million.
When Revere was in the schematic design phase, it also had a 10 percent design contingency of a similar amount. But as the details of a project become more solid, the amount of contingency money needed goes down. Because Revere is now in the CD 90% phase, they are down to about half that. Their other contingency buckets are similarly smaller because they’re further along.
Revere’s timeline also means it won’t be hit by tariffs as hard as Lexington could be. Revere has already ordered many of the materials it will use to start construction in the fall. Lexington has not.
Scope
Another reason Lexington’s school building project could be more expensive than Revere’s is that the scope of Lexington’s project is bigger in many ways.
Lexington’s site has more acreage than Revere’s. And the soil on Lexington’s site is more complex. Parts of Lexington’s new school will be built on wetlands, so the town will have to replicate those wetlands elsewhere on the site to mitigate flooding. There are some isolated wetlands on Revere’s site, but not to the same extent as Lexington’s.
Lexington will also be building more sports fields — two rectangular fields and two diamond fields, compared to Revere’s one rectangular field and one diamond field. Lexington is also adding to and renovating its field house, which could cost about $50 million. Revere does not have a field house.
The new Lexington High School will host the district’s central offices and space for the LABBB Collaborative, the town’s regional special education program. Revere will not host its central offices in its new high school, but will host some amenities such as space for vocational programs and Junior ROTC.
Lexington’s school building committee, or SBC, does not yet know if the Massachusetts School Building Authority, or MSBA, which is the state program the town is working with to finance the new high school, will offer funding for the LABBB space.
Lynn Stapleton, project executive at LeftField, told LexObserver she doesn’t think it will.
Revere will also save money by not knocking down its current high school. The city is building its new high school on the old greyhound race track site and plans to turn its current high school into a magnet middle school — a free, public middle school that offers specialized curriculum in topics such as STEM or performing arts.
Lexington, however, is building its new school on the same site as its current high school. The town plans to knock down the current high school after the new one is completed, which is another cost.
Sustainability
Lexington’s new high school will be greener than Revere’s.
“In the long run, it may be a cost savings to them and certainly an environmental saving measure, but it does have a high initial cost,” Stapleton said.
Lexington’s new school will be net-zero. It will include hybrid geothermal heat pumps, solar batteries, roof-top solar panels, and parking lot solar canopies. The hybrid HVAC system alone could save Lexington about $3 million annually, an analysis from SMMA, the architecture firm on Lexington’s project, reflects.
“Sustainability makes sense: it has both lower initial and lower ongoing costs,” Gerry Yurkevicz, a columnist for LexObserver, wrote. “Furthermore, a fossil fuel system does not come close to meeting efficiency targets or reducing operational greenhouse gas emissions.”
Revere’s school won’t be net-zero or have solar panels and batteries installed when it opens, but it will be all-electric and solar-ready.
Revere’s city planner has more of a multi-phased effort toward installing solar, Dakin explained. He’s currently researching grants and programs the city can apply for to help fund solar installation in the future. But even if all of the parking areas and the building are covered in solar panels, Revere’s new school still won’t get to net-zero.
Revere’s payment plan
Revere is paying for the project through city council approved borrowing, about $224 million from the MSBA, and a combination of new tax revenues. Mainly, that tax revenue will come from the new housing the city is bringing to the Suffolk Downs development, which is an old 90-acre race track. The new development will bring over 10,000 new units of housing to Revere and East Boston.
Revere will not have to go out to voters for a debt exclusion, Jim Rogers, owner of LeftField, said, because it has those streams of revenue.
Lexington is expected to bring a little over 1,000 residential units online as a result of the MBTA Communities Act. That will bring more revenue to the town but not enough to make as big a dent as the Suffolk Downs project will for Revere.
Now that Lexington is on the other side of the schematic design phase, the town’s SBC will gear up to bring the project before Town Meeting in November for a vote on whether or not Lexington will hold its debt exclusion vote in December.
In the meantime, the SBC will host at least two more meetings and two more community meetings, all of which the public are invited to attend in-person or virtually.
Thanks, Maggie for a far more informative piece than the SBC’s misleading and incorrect slide 19 of its https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1vkVUoNvaNe-jwtpOc9NevYerubk7FQpI&export=download&authuser=0 presentation. That slide claims to compare new High School costs “apples-to-apples” but it only looked at differing schedules, not at differences in scope.
Bottom line, Bloom is more expensive per sq ft than the new Revere High School once one takes into account important scope differences you ignored, namely:
– 8.7% of Revere’s space (24,480 sq ft per https://rhsconstructionproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/RHS-Schematic-Design-Binder-Intro.pdf) is for vocational education spaces, which are more expensive than average spaces; Bloom has no such spaces (they are all at Minuteman Tech).
– Revere has 650 parking underground spaces, while Bloom has surface parking only; underground parking is evidently more expensive than surface parking.
If one removes from Revere’s $493 million cost the expensive costs of vocational education spaces and underground parking — both expenses Bloom does not have to bear — for a real “apples-to-apples” comparison, Revere, without these extra expensive costs, is cheaper per sq ft than Bloom. The SBC is trying to fool the public into believing the opposite of this simple fact in slide 19.
The SBC has not told us whether the geothermal and other energy saving equipment planned for Bloom still have an attractive payback now that we expect $9 million instead of the previously planned $50 million in energy incentives “thanks” to Trump’s new policies.
This reduction of $41 million in expected grants ($50 million previously expected minus $9 million expected now) makes the amount to be borne by us, Lexington taxpayers, now $41 million higher than before, not lower as the SBC is also trying to fool the public into believing by “forgetting” to include the $41 million that Lexington taxpayers will now have to pay since the Feds will not, in slide 5 of its https://lexingtonma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/14955/20250731-PBC-Meeting-R1 presentation.
Why do consultants costing us, the taxpayers, some $11 million, produce misleading and incorrect slides (19 and 5 in the two presentations mentioned above)? If anyone, the YES campaign for the debt exclusion should do that — and I predict they will… unless our newspaper of record, this LexObserver, digs deeper into the facts.
The SBC would have the public believe that Bloom is a “great” and “inexpensive” design: it is neither.
This comment confuses me, because it looks like Patrick Mehr asked this question in a public meeting on July 31, and already got an answer that the previous federal energy credits were not included in the current cost estimate.
From the 8/1 Lexington Observer article, “A new estimate is in: Lexington High could cost about $660M”
The prior cost estimate noted the town could save about $50 million for those climate-friendly features due to reimbursements from former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA. Lexington resident Patrick Mehr asked the presenters where that $50 million went because it was not reflected in the presentation.
“We got a new president and there have been some changes in the IRA and it does not look like that will be available for this project,” Burton said.”
Meg:
The LexObserver story https://lexobserver.org/2025/08/01/lexington-high-school-could-cost-660-million-based-on-new-cost-estimate/ led me to slide 16 of https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vhpH_ouaOfkL0nzV–iJrqisoDovI93p/edit?slide=id.p16#slide=id.p16: as of Aug 22, 2024, the expected energy incentives were $59,027,500.
I remembered from SBC public meetings a round number of $50 million (now down to $9 million) plus $100 million from the MSBA (now up to $110 million), so there is an extra (50 – 9) = 41 million $s that Lexington taxpayers will pay to compensate for those $41 million in incentives that have disappeared.
Slide 5 of the SBC’s https://lexingtonma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/14955/20250731-PBC-Meeting-R1 presentation includes the plus $10 million from the MSBA (as it should), but not the minus $41 million in energy incentives — and that’s the problem I point out.
I call this direct misinformation of the public, something the YES campaign for a Bloom debt exclusion can be expected to engage in in these Trump times when facts no longer matter, but something I strongly object to from the SBC which spends $11 million in taxpayers’ money on consultants — because, unlike Trump, I care deeply about facts.
Is this issue now clear for you?
Respectfully disagree with Patrick – the bottom line is really that while many different factors go into the cost of a high school project, as Ms. Scales has thoughtfully detailed, the cost per sq ft in Lexington is very comparable to other school projects including Revere. Lexington’s cost psf will come out higher than some schools and lower than others, as the SBC slides show. Of course you can tweak your analysis this way and that, but the takeaway is that they’re all very similar and no one project is out of range with the others. I find it reassuring to understand that Lexington’s project is being designed to the same standard and level as projects across the state. FWIW, the tweaks suggested above don’t seem like a big difference maker – (1) neither school actually has Chapter 74 programming – vocational-technical space like Minuteman (Revere students can attend CityLab or Northeast Metro Tech for this). Instead they both have very similar non-Chapter 74 vocational and technology space: Revere has 24,480nsf and Lexington 17,720nsf for programs like: engineering, business, computer science, digital art, graphics, makerspace, video production, fabrication, and carpentry. (2) the underground parking at Revere was estimated to cost 12.5m. Lexington’s estimate for parking is included in the 5.8m for roadways. Definitely more in Revere, but not a major impact here.
Nothing major, just several $ million in costs that Revere bears but Bloom doesn’t. Once those extra Revere costs are removed from Revere’s total cost — as a true “apples-to-apples” comparison must do — one realizes that Bloom is more, not less as the SBC would have the public believe, expensive per sq ft than Revere.
Why does the SBC (in slide 19 of its https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1vkVUoNvaNe-jwtpOc9NevYerubk7FQpI&export=download&authuser=0 presentation) falsely present an “apples-to-apples” comparison?
Non construction experts like several Lexington residents and the LexObserver can see what the SBC attempts to do — hide the fact that Bloom is more expensive per sq ft than Revere.
Sigh, then what about removing the $12 million for demolition of the existing building from the Lexington project to get closer to your apples? (Revere’s project doesn’t include this as they will be attempting a second school building project later as Ms. Scales writes). I’ll say it again, you can tweak it this way and that, but the takeaway is that while many different factors go into the cost of a high school project, the cost per sq ft in Lexington is comparable to other school projects and Lexington’s project is being designed to the same standard and level as projects across the state. I’m sorry you feel someone is hiding this information from you.
It’s not “my” apples, it’s the SBC that claims its slide 19 of https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1vkVUoNvaNe-jwtpOc9NevYerubk7FQpI&export=download&authuser=0 to be an “apples-to-apples” comparison of $/sq ft costs, when it is not due to lack of adjustments for different scopes in each High School ([more expensive] vocational education spaces, [more expensive] underground parking, demolition, size of [more expensive] SPED spaces, etc, etc).
So slide 19 was published ONLY to make Bloom look cheaper per sq ft than Revere, something the YES campaign, not the SBC, should be expected to do in this new Trumpworld of ours where facts no longer matter — they do to me.
The SBC should make all the adjustments you and I (and more competent people like the SBC’s consultants and Mike Cronin) can think of BEFORE asserting that slide 19 is “apples-to-apples”, which it is not.
Case in point: I started this kind of exercise with Mike Cronin, who argued that Bloom is not a “sardine design” that offers fewer sq ft per student than other recent High Schools. We found that it’s hard to adjust for scope (schedules don’t matter in that analysis, as they do in $/sq ft comparisons), so I did the best I could but Mike gave up, so we never finished the analysis.
Respectfully, Yes4Lex is a volunteer campaign run by Lexington residents who care deeply about informing voters, about transparency, facts, and the future of our schools. Information we share comes from publicly available documents, which anyone in town can review for themselves. We believe the SBC has conducted its work in a transparent and thoughtful manner over the last 3 years, guided by professional consultants, town staff, town committees, community members, students, and state personnel, and subject to regular public meetings, presentations, and detailed documentation. Reasonable people can disagree on how to interpret the data or weigh the trade-offs, but accusing neighbors and volunteers of deliberate misinformation is unjustified and a little much.
– Taylor Singh, Yes4Lex Chair
Check out our site to endorse the campaign and get involved: http://www.yes4lex.org
You can stay up to date on all this things LHS project at: http://www.lhsproject.lexingtonma.org
Taylor:
Respectfully, as demonstrated below, I believe the exact opposite of your “the SBC has conducted its work in a transparent and thoughtful manner”.
Re “transparency”, why do I have to file a Public Records Request (PRR) to obtain information the SBC refuses to provide in response to multiple requests? For example, I asked what the “code upgrades” exactly are that the SBC keeps referring to (based on no evidence) that demolishing 1 existing LHS building would “require” on all the other existing LHS buildings. Town Counsel answered my PRR saying that no document exists mandating such “code upgrades”, so not only was the SBC not transparent by not answering me informally, but it provided misinformation — to remain “respectful” I am not characterizing this untrue “code upgrades” SBC assertion by a less polite 3-letter noun.
Re “thoughtful manner”, why did the SBC not add as the 7th design to the 6 designs its cost estimators A.M. Fogarty and PM&C costed (https://drive.google.com/file/d/13MSjN8bVjN0syHtJJ_JyBGe2QNoKZ71R/view?usp=sharing) the true 2-phase design the Schools’ 2015 facilities planning document recommended, demolishing the LHS foreign languages building, and replacing it with a larger building (a multi-story “box”)? The SBC wants us to believe that Weave is that 2-phase design, but it is not. Weave is a full demolition of the whole LHS campus to accommodate the same 2,395 students (evidently too few) as Bloom whereas a true 2-phase design can accommodate up to over 4,000 students.
I am very curious to understand why the SBC consistently ignored a true 2-phase design on the basis of misinformation like the “code upgrades” or “keeping the LHS campus going if Bloom is not built will cost $300 million”, since a true 2-phase design can accommodate far more students than Bloom’s 2,395 (LHS already has more than 2,395 students), will very likely be cheaper than Bloom, can alleviate LHS overcrowding sooner than Bloom, does not impact the fields and requires no risky (remember PAYT?…) article 97 land swap. I have come up with 2 guesses — pure guesses, based on no evidence whatsoever so I am happy to be proven wrong if a better reason exists: (i) Julie wants a glitzy “Hackett school” as the crowning achievement of her career, and/or (ii) our architects are keen on Bloom, a palatial oeuvre, so they can add it to their portfolio to impress future clients and sell their next assignments.
If you know the true motivation of the SBC (6 of its 13 voting members are School and Town employees) to never have looked at the true 2-phase design the Schools’ own 2015 facilities planning document recommended, please let me know.
Is the high school expected to open in 2029 or 2031?
The new high school is planned to open for the 2029/2030 academic year. The project, however, will continue – removing the old high school and building the new athletic field where the old building and parking areas were located. The full project is expected to be completed in 2031.
Excellent reporting, thank you!
Thank you for contd ongoing information and ongoing discussions and comments
There is one thing in common
We need new school with educational and recreational amenities for students and teachers
Most likely the following issue have been disclosed at some times around but constituents of mine are asking the following question
Taxes how much more- house value from town
new school 650 million or around —cost
1 million dollar
2 million dollar
3 million dollars
500000 dollars
rental houses
Thank you all for bringing information of value and hoping that new beginning will take place to bring our educational system the best there is to it
Dinesh
precibct 6 tm
Thank you to Maggie Scales and the Lexington Observer for diving into this hot topic that Lexingtonians most certainly have been inquiring about this week. We are grateful for their investigation into the differences between these two future high schools and their fair and honest reporting.
My original questions remain. Why do I as a senior have to take the full brunt of the increased assessment to Lexington residents to pay for the school? People with students in the school will utilize consumables, cause wear and tear on the building and grounds, etc. My children are long gone and I will use nothing at the school.
The answer is always — “your property values are increased by the school”.
Yes, they are. I accept that and am happy to contribute a share, but not 100%! Is it that leadership wants to drive the elderly out of Lexington? My family has lived here for 50 years and want to stay, but I do have finite resources. Why is not fair for the elderly to pay a percentage of the full assessment?
You can apply this to any number of budget items in Lexington or any town or city. I won’t benefit from “x”, so why should I pay a full share of x? When we moved here in 2008, my wife and I were not senior citizens. Should we have had to pay a full share of the senior center budget? Likewise, we don’t get any use out of the community center, why should we pay a full share for that? W
hy should residents pay a full share of the portion of the budget that funds the elementary schools after their children have left elementary school? And on, and on, and on. While you are living in a town or a city, as a resident you are responsible for your share of the total, not just the parts that you will benefit from. If we only paid for the parts that we benefit from, the town would come to a screeching halt.
In response to both the article and to Leon’s comment: I understand why the cost is so high, but I’m betting it’s going to get a lot higher. That being said, I sent four children through the public school system in Lexington. Now that I’m a senior, and have the money to help pay for the project, I’m happy to do so. My mom, who lived in Newton, felt the same way. But…this is going to be a heavy burden to many on fixed incomes. The state of the economy will also influence the final cost. I would like to see a program that takes these burdens into account.
With due respect, Mr. Goldman, if your children attended Lexington High School, seniors (aka elderly) paid for the “consumables” your children “utilized,” their “wear and tear on the building and grounds”, etc. That’s the way it works. If you purchased your home 50 years ago, thanks to market forces, it has increased in value, probably beyond your wildest dreams. Mine has! The State andTown have programs for senior homeowners whose incomes have not kept pace with rising property taxes due to increasing valuations. Check them out!
With respect, Ms Thomas, I paid for the “wear and tear” while my children were in the school and for years after. I paid taxes then, too. Just because everyone always paid the full cost in the past after their children had left the school system, does not make it right for the practice to continue. One could consider splitting the tax burden into the costs to run the town and the costs for the school system and have seniors pay a percentage of the school costs and the full cost of the town. In any event you will not change my view and I will not change yours.
Let us agree to disagree.
Thanks, Observer, for this informative and well-researched article!
Revere High: $500M project. The state pays half, the rest comes from “new tax revenues.” Residents don’t pay a dime. It’s basically free.
Lexington High: $660M project. The state chips in $100M. Residents (WE) get stuck with the other $560M.
And here’s the kicker: LHS is already the best public school in Massachusetts—without a shiny new building. The magic isn’t in the walls, it’s in the teachers. That’s what kids remember.
So why waste time, money, and resources on vanity construction? For half the cost, we could put up a world-class STEM building right on campus in two years—and actually invest in what matters: keeping and hiring the best teachers, now.
But then Julie wouldn’t get her glitzy “Hackett school” as crowning achievement of her career and the architects couldn’t add a palatial oeuvre to their portfolio to impress future clients and sell them their next assignment. If the boondoggle that Bloom is proceeds, both will get those things — at taxpayers’ expense…
There are a couple of key factors why Lexington needs to move forward with replacing all buildings now.
1)There are extensive costs needed to maintain existing Lexington High School facilities which are 50+ years old. Why throw away money on maintenance when it can be invested on new, more efficient building space? These maintenance costs will only increase in the future – an absolute money pit that is not a responsible use of funds.
2) The longer we wait to replace the buildings, the more construction costs will increase.
This decision needs to be made with a long term vision, not a short term focus on penny pinching and shortcuts that will end up costing us more over time.
Mark:
Re your 1), because the maintenance costs for our current LHS buildings, call them $X, are nowhere near the huge amounts the SBC has asserted without any supporting evidence (see #1 in https://lexobserver.org/2025/08/18/letters-to-the-editor-some-facts-about-bloom) and $X may be smaller than $660 million minus the (lower) cost of a true 2-phase design; plus Phase 1 of a true 2-phase design would be ready sooner than Bloom, reducing $X.
Re 2), you are correct. Residents have said for 1.5-2 years that a true 2-phase design should be studied, as recommended by the Schools’ 2015 facilities planning document, but the SBC has refused, so blame the SBC for such rising costs: they are misusing the consultants’ time and resources on Bloom, and without a Plan B in case Bloom never happens due to article 97 issues, 2 of 5 SB members opposing Bloom or a failed debt exclusion.
I agree 500% with you on “This decision needs to be made with a long term vision”. That is the main reason why I see Bloom as a boondoggle likely to jeopardize the quality of our schools: Bloom accommodates 2,395 students when we had 2,425 this past year, and we may have some 4,000 new MBTA dwellings in Town in the next 8 or so years, increasing Lexington’s population by 30%.
It’s to me ludicrous to spend $660 million on a building supposed to last us 70 years, but designed for FEWER students than we have now, while Lexington may GROW by 30%.
There is an “elephant in the room” that Mr. Mehr, Ms. Panasyuk, and other advocates for renovation never address — safety.
My daughter was in third grade at Bowman the year of the mass shooting at Sandyhook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. This was the topic of discussion at the next principal’s coffee hour for parents. The principal at the time, Dr. Mary Anton, explained that it was relatively easy to restrict access to one entrance at the elementary schools and the middle schools, and to fortify the entrances. That is not possible with our “California campus” high school. Hundreds of students cross the courtyard to get from building to building in between classes.
The fact is, the current high school is a security sieve. For me, the safety of the students is of primary importance. There are many reasons to move forward with the Bloom design, but safety alone justifies the price tag and the design.
Nice try, but I don’t buy this. If Bloom proceeds, our most vulnerable students will be forced to spend 4 years of construction right next to a large construction site.
Do you know who those highly vulnerable students are?
Mr. Mehr, please clarify, what does your reply have to do with my point, that the California campus is one giant security hole, which almost guarantees maximum casualties in case of a mass shooting.
I was talking about the mental safety of our highly vulnerable LABBB students who, if Bloom proceeds, will suffer 4 years of construction right next to their existing space. That’s a greater risk than a shooting in my view. And I can’t see all schools in the nation that are not a Bloom-like fortress being rebuilt to address your “concern”.
So your “concern” as another feeble attempt to try to convince the public that Bloom, which is too small (designed for 30 students less than we already have at LHS while we may have 4,000 new MBTA dwellings in town in the next 8 years or so, a 33% increase in Lexington’s current population of 12,000 households; see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17OpIfyFsvGyrz8u_fQ5nhWYk7rnEDml4/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116971253884586510151&rtpof=true&sd=true), too expensive, misplaced in the fields, takes too long to build to relieve LHS’s overcrowding and is too risky (the article 97 land swap Bloom needs is as risky as PAYT was) is the best thing since sliced bread given all the misinformation the SBC has spread (7 concrete examples of which are at https://lexobserver.org/2025/08/18/letters-to-the-editor-some-facts-about-bloom/).