Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich
CHATHAM – Officials with Cape Cod Regional Technical High School updated Chatham Selectmen on Tuesday with plans for a new school and also had some good news; it is going to be cheaper than previous estimates.
The initial cost for the new high school was at about $141 million, but that number has now dropped to just over over $127 million.
“Because they’ve dug in and there’s now actual drawings and they’ve spoken with our staff on multiple occasions, there’s been a lot of environmental testing since then, the number came down considerably,” said Superintendent Robert Sanborn.
Other factors that brought the cost down was the school’s decision not to hire a construction professional before the project gets underway, which saves about 10 percent of the costs, and instead they will go with designing, bidding, then building.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority will reimbursement about 32 percent of the project’s costs, which leaves more than $86 million to be paid for by the 12 district towns.
The cost for each town’s contribution is based on how many students from each town attend the school
Barnstable, which has the most students at 173, is looking at paying 28 percent of the $86.9 million cost.
Chatham, with one of the lowest number of students at the school with 10, would be on the hook for over $2 million, costing about $89,000 per year.
“The tax income on a home per thousand would be about a penny, and that would be over a 30 year period,” said Sanborn. “The average home value was $872,000 in the Town of Chatham, which would be an impact of about $8.73 on the average tax bill in the Town of Chatham.”
The project will go before voters in all of the 12 district towns on October 24.
If approved, groundbreaking would start in the fall of 2019 with completion expected in the summer of 2021.
School officials plan to demolish the current school in the summer of 2022.
Towns are not expected to feel a financial impact until 2020.
After Sanborn’s presentation, Chatham selectmen voted unanimously to continue to support the project.
By JUSTIN SAUNDERS, CapeCod.com Newscenter
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