Cape Tech Offers Virtual Tour of Early Designs of New School

Courtesy of Cape Cod Regional Technical High School.

HARWICH – A new Cape Cod Regional Technical High School is still a few years away but residents can get a sneak peak of what the new facility might look like.

School officials were recently presented with a virtual 3D tour by the architects and project owner’s manager, which can now be viewed at the school’s website.

“It kind of gives you a three-dimensional get inside the space for a couple of spaces in the building,” said Robert Sanborn, the school’s superintendent.

The virtual tour features outside areas including the Main Entry Way and Student Commons, along with the Main Level Corridor, Culinary Arts Restaurant, Gymnasium, Cafeteria, Fitness Center, Upper Level Corridor, Media Center, Inner Connecting Stairs and Flex Space.

The virtual tour can be found at the school’s website at capetech.us.

“We got to share that with our faculty recently and it was kind of an exciting thing,” Sanborn said. “It’s now becoming more real that there will be a new vocational technical high school here in Harwich.”

The $128 million project was overwhelmingly approved by voters in all 12 district towns in October. The Massachusetts School Building Authority will cover more than 30 percent of the cost with the remaining $86 million to be spread across the district towns by enrollment percentage.

The towns which make up the district include Barnstable, Mashpee, Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro and Provincetown.

Architects are still in the design development phase, which is expected to last through April.

“They’ve been meeting with all of our technical programs, all of our academic teachers, all the administrative spaces and all the support spaces that are in a high school,” Sanborn said.

More will be added to the virtual tour webpage while design work continues.

“We really just want to keep [residents] informed of what they supported in October as we move down in the process,” Sanborn said.

After the design is approved by the MSBA, construction documents will be prepared through the summer.

Sanborn said bids would then be accepted between September and November with hopes of breaking ground in December.

“I think it’s going to give students from Provincetown to Mashpee the opportunity for what we’ve always offered – a top notch technical education – but now in a 21^st century facility,” Sanborn said.

By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter