Great Barrington — The Berkshire Hills Regional School District Building Committee will hold a public information session on potential plans for Monument Mountain Regional High School on Monday, November 25, at 6 p.m. The meeting will be held in the school’s cafeteria and virtually on Zoom.
In March 2020, the Eight Town Regional School District Regional Planning Board was formed to examine the possible merger of the Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire regional school districts. The merger would have included the construction of a new high school in Great Barrington. In special town meetings held in late October 2023, however, residents in Monterey, New Marlborough, Sheffield, and Egremont all voted down the potential school districts merger, while residents in Great Barrington, Stockbridge, Alford, and West Stockbridge all voted to approve the merger.
After the potential merger was defeated, the Berkshire Hills Regional School District formed a School Building Committee that includes residents from the school district, along with outside consultants William Rawn Associates, DiNisco Design, and Skanska. Architectural firms William Rawn Associates, and DiNisco Design originate from Boston, while Skanska is a project development and construction group originating from New York City.
Members of the committee presented a plan with multiple options to members of the Great Barrington Selectboard and Finance Committee at the board’s meeting on Monday, November 18.
At the beginning of the presentation, School Building Committee Chair Jason St. Peter, who is also a member of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District Committee, spoke about the history of the school. “[The high school] opened in 1968, and the educational programming [at the building] was from the late ’50s and early ’60s,” St. Peter said. “Like most of the school buildings built in the late 1950s, early 1960s, and not even the early 1970s, these buildings have come to [their] end, both from an educational standpoint as well as physically and mechanically. This is nothing new, and this has been recognized for the last 15 years.”
St. Peter said that, for the last 10 years, the school district has been applying for funds from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) to help pay for a new school building project. “It’s taken us 10 years to get accepted [by the MSBA] for funds for this project,” St. Peter said. “This is, realistically, our last shot. [The MSBA] were hesitant to do this after the no votes [on the merger]. The competition has gotten significantly higher. There’s a lot of schools that want their money and need their help, so this is really our best chance to use their money to go forward.”
“It’s an extremely competitive process [for MSBA funds], and each district needs to demonstrate an educational and facility need,” said DiNisco Design President and Principal Donna DiNisco. “Monument Mountain was one of 17 schools selected [by the MSBA] out of 58 schools.”
DiNisco said that the district’s building committee is currently conducting a feasibility study. At the conclusion of the study, the committee will select a preferred plan by December 4. As required by MSBA, however, the committee has to review all possible options for any building project.
The first option for the school district is for a project that would upgrade the existing school, which would bring it up to current building codes and regulations, including for current fire building codes and ADA requirements. “It would be a repair to your existing building,” DiNisco said. “MSBA won’t [fund the repair project] because it won’t address your educational needs.”
As per DiNisco’s presentation, the upgrade project would not modify or improve spaces for programs, including lab spaces and classrooms, and would be disruptive during the school day. The building upgrade project would not receive any funding from the MSBA and would cost the towns served by the school district an estimated total of over $114 million.
The second potential option would be a renovation and addition to the current school building. This option would add a one-story addition of 146,000 square feet to the west side of the existing building. The proposed addition would meet educational and programmatic needs for the school district.
The estimated total cost of the project would be between $157 million and $169 million, depending on the heating and cooling system installed as part of the project. MSBA would reimburse the school district from $58.68 million to $58.75 million. The local share for this option is estimated from $97.70 million to $108.9 million.
The third option presented by the school building committee would be to build a completely new school building. DiNisco said that two potential locations for the new school building have been identified, with one location close to Stockbridge Road and the other potential location on top of a current parking lot at the school.
As detailed in the committee’s plans, if the new building is built in the location closer to Stockbridge Road, it would be three stories in size. If the building is built on the current parking lot, it would be two stories in size. Both new school building options plan for a 140,000-square-foot building. DiNisco said that the construction of a new school building would give the school a prominent location on the existing property, and that any new school building would meet all educational programming requirements.
The total cost of a new school building project would be between $143 million to $165 million, depending on the heating and cooling system installed as part of the project. MSBA would reimburse the school district between $53.38 million and $53.55 million. The local share for the new building project is estimated from $88.97 million to $109.7 million.
According to the timeline posted by the committee, after the group decides on a project on December 4, it will be submitted to the MSBA on December 19. Before any project goes forward, it would have to go to a town meeting vote before voters in Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and West Stockbridge in order to approve local funding. The district vote is planned for sometime in the fall of 2025. If funding is approved in all three towns, the approved building project would be completed by 2030, at the latest.
Click here for the presentation from the Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee’s Building Committee.
