The Andover Permanent Town Building Advisory Committee got updates on several school and local government building projects when it held a virtual meeting Friday.
The Andover High School Building committee has hired a demographer that will project enrollments for the high school for the next 20 years, AHS Building Committee Mark Johnson said. The report is due at the end of October, after enrollment numbers for the 2022-23 school year are tabulated. The board has had three meetings and will be looking at both building a new school or proposing an extensive renovation and addition for the existing building. “There has been a decrease [in enrollment] across the state,” Johnson said. “The question now is if it’s going to continue.”
The next big challenge for the West Elementary School construction project is to coordinate the start of the school year, when students will head to class adjacent to an active construction site, West El building committee member Brian DeFilippis told the Advisory Committee. “The biggest challenge will be coordinating traffic. We want to make sure we get this right from day one, DeFilippis said. “There’s been a lot of outreach, but the first day of school is approaching rapidly.”
The design is “largely done” for the project to renovate town offices, staff liaison Janet Nicosia told the advisory committee. The project is on schedule to go out to bid in October. Work on the project could begin as soon as next spring.
The town started accepting bids on Friday for the Doherty Middle School renovation project approved by Town Meeting. The project is budgeted for $8 million.