Two major school building projects set to break ground in 2023 — here's where they stand

Two area school building projects that have been in the works for years are finally set to break ground in the first half of 2023.

In Somerset, fences went up last week around current Somerset Middle School to allow for pre-construction work to begin on the new school building planned for next to the current structure.

Victor Machado, Somerset Berkley Regional School Committee member and chair of the Somerset Middle School Building Committee, said the contract for the project has already begun ordering steel for the project.

“Seeing the fences going up today… the reality is here,” he said. “We’re getting a new middle school for our students.”

On Dec. 12, the building committee voted to contract with Marshfield construction company Brait Builders as the lead contractor for the project. They expect to break ground sometime this spring, Machado said.

At the 2021 Annual Town Meeting, Somerset voters approved $85 million in funding for the project by a wide majority, with 459 residents voting in favor of the project and 134 against. The Massachusetts School Building Authority, a quasi-governmental state agency that works with school districts on major projects like new buildings, would reimburse the town up to $31.8 million, leaving around $52.2 million to be covered by Somerset taxpayers.

This past summer, the building committee requested an additional $9.9 million for the project, saying that issues like inflation’s impact on the cost of construction materials meant that bids for contracts came back higher than expected. When voters rejected the article to spend the additional money, project leaders said they would have to scale back designs for the new building, eliminating elements like the new school's planned auditorium.

But, Machado said this week that they are back to using their original design for the new building. Construction costs have lowered in recent months, and Brait Builders have strong connections to subcontractors that allowed them to acquire services for cheaper than expected, he said. The finished product might have less parking and fewer athletic fields than the team originally hoped for, but the building itself will be as originally designed, with an auditorium.

The expected opening date for the new school was going to be pushed back by six months if they had to redesign the building, Machado said. Now, they’re back on track to welcome students into the building in September of 2024, as originally planned.

“This is a big win,” he said.

A new Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School

Construction on the new Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School is also tentatively scheduled to begin this spring. Principal Andrew Rebello said they have entered discussions with Suffolk Construction Company, the same company that led construction of the new B.M.C. Durfee High School, to be the main contractor for the project.

Dates will be easier to predict once Suffolk formerly signs on a contractor, Rebello said, but the school is anticipating having students in the new building in January of 2026. Demolition of the existing school would then happen in the first four months of 2026, then the new athletic fields would be completed in November of that year.

“This is a monumental point in the history of Diman,” Rebello said. We’ve been talking about this for years and years.”

The school is already working to figure out how to accommodate spring sports practices and games off-site this year and will hold its graduation ceremony at Durfee.

“Scheduling and logistics will be a challenge,” Rebello said, but added that they don’t anticipate having to cancel any sports seasons because of construction.

The MSBA agreed last December to reimburse around 51% of the total cost for the $293 million new building, which will be built on what’s currently the school’s football field The new building will have four stories and include more than 50% more square footage of space that the current Diman.

Fall River and Diman’s three other feeder communities — Somerset, Swansea and Westport — all signed off on paying for their proportional shares of the project. So far, none of them have opted to allow a debt exclusion or debt override to cover their share of the project’s cost, which would allow a town or the city to raise property taxes specifically to pay for the new building. In November, Westport voters rejected a ballot question that would have allowed for a debt exclusion by a vote of 3,700 to 3,345.