On November 3, Special Town Meeting voted decisively (91% in favor) to fund construction of a new Lexington High School.
Our new school, as planned in what’s called the Bloom option, will be built on fields next to the current LHS, with move-in date planned for fall 2029, after which the old LHS buildings will be demolished and their footprint re-purposed for replacement fields.
On December 8th Lexington residents will vote on a debt exclusion measure that’s required to pay for this essential project.
Here’s why I’m voting YES…
If we don’t proceed with this project, we’ll face spending $300 million for long-deferred maintenance on existing LHS buildings, basically just to keep the lights on. Even after we invest that huge amount on HVAC, roof, windows, doors, plumbing, electrical, and so on, LHS will still be way too small for its enrollment, with overcrowded classrooms, bottlenecked hallways, an overflowing cafeteria, undersized gym, and other spaces ill-suited for today’s educational needs. And we’d still have the security vulnerabilities of LHS’s open campus.
Some have advocated that we renovate and add to LHS in multiple stages. But after careful consideration that approach was rejected because it would cost more, and take longer, and it would be incredibly disruptive and unsafe for our kids and others on LHS premises during onsite demolitions and construction.
In any case, a phased LHS rebuild is not what’s on the table now. What is on the table now is Bloom, which will give us an entirely new school at lower cost, faster, and with much less disruption.
Bloom’s cost is similar to that of other high school projects in our area when comparisons are normalized for date, size, and scope. A tax impact calculator shows that the tax increase to cover its cost will be minimal at first, rise gradually over 10 years, and at its peak in FY2036 will account for less than 8% of our property taxes.
Doing nothing is not an option. Postponing the project would only increase its cost to Lexington taxpayers. Bloom will provide us with a wonderful new high school that will serve us well for many decades. It will be a tremendous asset for our town and for our kids. It’s the right choice. Let’s get this done by voting YES on Monday December 8th.
Peter:
Your “we’ll face spending $300 million for long-deferred maintenance on existing LHS buildings” — to which you forgot to add what the SBC says, namely “over the next 10 years, if Bloom is not built” (my words), or $30 million per year average — shows that you believe everything the SBC says. You should not.
On this particular issue, the Town has been spending $6-8 million annually to maintain and repair ALL our 17+ buildings, of which LHS is just 1. This has been so for the past 10 years or so: how can LHS’s maintenance and repairs costing a fraction of $6-8 million per year become $30 million per year if Bloom is not built is not clear to me. Is it to you?
To be more technical, I filed a Public Records Request to receive all documents on the basis of which the SBC asserts this $300 million figure. I received a single document, the https://drive.google.com/file/d/19rrDjp4oD7edb0awDVgCTao-fJNS3KYc/view?usp=sharing VFA study listing each piece of equipment in each LHS building, and which states, based on a recommended replacement schedule, when each piece of equipment must be replaced and at what cost. My https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cuudwy6WIHLN2czDNzzdW4ohpou9xOr_/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116971253884586510151&rtpof=true&sd=true spreadsheet adds up the costs of these recommended replacements, $303,507,645 in total — the SBC’s $300 million.
The first significant VFA-recommended investment is on page 25 of 1,082 of the VFA document, $5,464,649 on “Unit Ventilators – Heating Only (SF) Renewal” in LHS’s “A,B,C,D,E – Main” building(s) due on January 13, 2020 (the “Expenditure”). Via another PRR, I asked via another Public Records Request “to receive all engineering, accounting, financial or other document(s) regarding this Expenditure — including, but not limited to, detailed studies, purchase orders, invoices or proofs of payments — showing the date(s) when the work was done, and the cost(s) of the work done regarding this Expenditure.” In response, Town Counsel stated that no documents exist regarding this Expenditure. So this $5,464,649 investment was never done, even though VFA said it should have been done years ago — and the LHS campus has continued to function, which means that the SBC’s $300 million assertion is invalid.
Beware of what the SBC says: it has unfortunately morphed into a YES campaign for Bloom. For example, the SBC never gave any “careful consideration” to an on-campus, phased, box-based design capable of accommodating more than 2,395 students once its Phase 2 is completed: only Weave was considered, which is basically building Bloom on campus instead of in the fields, for 2,395 students only, not in phases, and not with (cheaper, simpler) boxes.
This is that super weird argument Patrick has brought up before that because the Town deferred some repairs on the LHS buildings we knew were going to replace/renovate, and because we did not complete a particular line item repair, that means the SBC is “lying to us” and the facilities condition assessment report is “invalid.” That makes no sense.
Repair and renovation costs of $300+ million have been confirmed by both the professional cost estimators for a code upgrade and by the Department of Public Facilities (DPF) for needed repairs. The Code Upgrade option – simply repairing the current buildings and updating them to code, with no walls moved – was professionally cost estimated two separate times, as one of the 18 options in April 2024 during the Preliminary Design Program phase last year and a second time in October 2024 as one of the seven options in the Preferred Schematic Report. You can review the estimates and scope of necessary repair work in the Evaluation of Alternatives section of the PDP submission and the PSR submission available on the project website.
Separately, the DPF maintains detailed facility condition assessments and replacement cost estimates for all public facilities in Lexington. These assessments indicate the LHS buildings require about $300 million in repairs in the next decade. Many costly repairs have been deferred in recent years since the Town knew we would be working on a building project for LHS. Most systems at LHS have reached the critical point where repairs cannot be deferred any longer; DPF indicates LHS is in urgent need of major system upgrades/replacements, including roof ($15M), windows ($20M), doors ($5M), HVAC ($50M-$100M), plumbing ($10M), ADA upgrades ($15M), and electrical ($25M). The Field House requires system updates too ($25M). You can review more info on existing conditions and costs of repairs on the project website.
https://www.lhsproject.lexingtonma.org/
I agree with Peter’s letter – postponing the project will only increase the costs to Lexington taxpayers. If we vote YES, Lexington receives up to $121 million in state funding to help pay for a modern learning facility that will serve our community for generations. If we vote no, we lose that state funding, and planning for an alternative starts all over again – a delay that means several more years of paying to limp along with inadequate facilities while inflation adds millions more to the future project’s cost.