Cape Tech Partners With Mass. School Building Authority To Explore Aging Facility

HARWICH – Cape Cod Regional Technical High School officials are exploring options for their aging building, and will eventually decide between renovating the current school or constructing a new one.

Cape Tech has partnered with the Massachusetts School Building Authority to research the needs of the Harwich school, which opened in 1973. The MSBA has accepted Cape Tech into its Core Program, a step to possibly getting state aid for an eventual project.

“If you walk in here, it’s going to look like it’s a much younger facility…but the stuff behind the walls, all the mechanical systems, major mechanical systems, are in need of replacement. They’ve come to the end of their useful life,” said Superintendent Robert Sanborn.

“The academic classrooms do not meet the minimum square footage for classrooms today,” Sanborn added. “Our science rooms are woefully inadequate to today’s standards.”

It’s unclear at this point if a preferred project would be to renovate the current school or build a new one. A feasibility study will be conducted and school building officials will determine the course forward after that. A partnership with the MSBA requires that schools look at both renovation and reconstruction options.

The school opened proposals from architects last week and anticipates to have an architect in the fold by the beginning of May.

School officials and the building committee hope to decide between renovation and reconstruction options in a year or so.

Any project would need to be approved by voters from Cape Tech’s 12 sending towns: Barnstable, Brewster, Chatham, Dennis, Eastham, Harwich, Mashpee, Orleans, Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Yarmouth.

This year’s MSBA reimbursement rate is 42 percent. The rate is subject to change each year.