By Geena Monahan
For the North Star Reporter
Brad Dore, architect from Dore and Whittier, stood before Town Council to address a question circulating among town residents – why build a new high school behind the existing one?
At the council’s meeting on Monday, Feb. 24, Dore presented slides on the process for determining a site for a new high school, outlining the due diligence done to comply with strict Massachusetts School Building Authority standards.
Thirteen potential sites were evaluated as part of this process, including Cliff Street, Depot Street, Ellis Road, the Emerald Square Mall, Hoppin Hill Avenue, Landry Avenue (across the street from the existing school site), Mary Kennedy Drive, Mt. Hope Street, two parcels on Plain Street — one being the town forest and the other being the compost site — and West Street.
“We looked at 13 potential opportunities for relocating the high school from the current site to a new site,” Dore said. “The first thing we usually look at is town-owned land. If you already own the land, then you don’t have to go out and buy the land. That’s an important factor for the MSBA, because they won’t reimburse you for those acquisition costs.”
In addition to looking for town-owned land, Dore laid out other assessment criteria used in the process, such as acreage, use classification, location, utility infrastructure, access to athletic fields, topography and availability to leverage existing infrastructure. Based on these criteria, the site of the current high school was deemed the best option for a new one.
“The mall was something that was looked at, fairly briefly because of the screening criteria,” Dore said. “One, you don’t own it. Two, (mall) developers aren’t necessarily looking at trying to create a building that’s going to last a really long time and be super durable when you have over a thousand kids in there every day.”
Dore continued, “It’s also something that currently is on your tax roll and you’d be taking that off, then putting something there in the future that will be there for a very long time. So, you won’t be able to have someone else come in and reconstitute that in some way and be in a better position to be on your tax roll.”
The good news, according to Dore, is that the high school’s existing site does meet many of the outlined criteria. Nine geotechnical borings were brought in to assess the soil and confirm that it would be suitable to be built on. Those tests showed that no significant ground improvements would need to be made, nor would ledge contribute to any major issues.
“Another thing that comes out of the soil analysis is how we’re going to deal with stormwater,” Dore said. “Right now, we’re going to be putting a big storm water retention under the baseball field, trying to catch the problem that we know hasn’t been resolved at the existing stadium. This is all tied back to making sure we take care of any site water issues.”
Two measures relating to the proposed new high school were presented at the end of the meeting, the first of which was for authorization to hold a special election on June 3, 2025, for the purpose of seeking voter approval of a debt exclusion to partially fund construction. This passed unanimously, 8-0, with Councilor Andrew Shanahan not in attendance.
The second and final measure was to approve the ballot question language, on which Councilor Mark Gould Jr. made a motion to amend in order to add an estimated cost of the project into the language. Gould cited “wanting to make sure people know what they’re voting on” as cause for his motion.
Fellow Councilor John Simmons agreed that we should give the people all of the information necessary, but pointed out that it’s against the Department of Revenue’s law to include estimated amounts in cases of debt exclusions.
Town Manager Michael Borg echoed concerns of including approximations, as borrowing costs won’t be solidified until bonding initiatives and interest rates come through. North Attleborough’s bond rating looks to improve from a AA+ to a AAA this March, which could save the town about $9 million in interest.
“It’s almost like if you go buy a vehicle and you advertise it as $10,000, interest-free,” Councilor Darius Gregory explained. “That’s misleading somebody. We know it’s not, we know there’s going to be interest tied to it. So if we put this on the ballot, as is, with the numbers just for the construction, it’s almost like you’re misleading the public. You’re leaving out a huge piece of the puzzle.”
A vote was then held on Gould’s amendment, which failed 7-1. The ballot language measure itself went on to pass unanimously.
“Certainly transparency will be out there,” said Town Council President Justin Pare. “It’s going to be on the website, we will talk about it at these meetings, the building committee will discuss it, it’s going to be in the newspaper, it’s going to be everywhere. We’re doing this in February because it takes months for it to get approved and get on the ballot. We’re not going to actually have a solidified number until around May 1.”
