Andover has chosen Colliers International to serve as the project manager for a $500,000 project aimed at studying potential upgrades for Andover High School.
“We haven’t worked with this firm before…but we’re really excited,” Andover Chief Financial Officer Patrick Lawlor told the Permanent Town Building Advisory Committee last week. “We feel really good about it.”
A November special town meeting shot down a request for $1.3 million to complete a detailed design of a new high school. At the same time, Andover’s legislative body approved $500,000 to study around $50 million in possible improvements to prolong the life of the existing school. The permanent town building committee has taken the lead on the so-called interim approach, which is aimed at extending the life of the existing school until Andover is in a better financial position to build a new one.
Related story: AHS Interim Approach Hits Snag
Town officials interviewed two firms before selecting Colliers. The Town is in the process of turning over documents that have already been produced and meeting with the firm to establish a process for moving forward with the study.
Colliers is “working locally on a major MSBA project,” Lawlor said. It’s “a complicated site for a new school, so we were all impressed.”