A redesigned, expanded Tisbury School is taking shape on the desktops of Boston-based Tappé Architects, which next week will begin sharing conceptual designs with the public in a monthlong series of Monday-evening videoconferences with the school building committee.
The August 10 meeting, which begins at 5 p.m. on Zoom, will focus on the school gymnasium and nearby areas, according to an announcement.
“In the following weeks, they will also do reviews of the floor plans and the exterior of the building,” wrote Christina Opper of CHA, the project management firm formerly known as Daedalus that was hired by the town to shepherd the school renovation process.
School building committee members, including Tisbury selectman Jimmy Rogers, are calling for town residents to join the Monday evening presentations, review the conceptual drawings and provide their opinions on the plans and estimated costs.
“That’s the key focus right now, to get the public involved in this process,” Mr. Rogers said at last week’s select board meeting.
Only a handful of town residents have been taking part in building committee meetings over the past few months, he said. “Prior to Covid-19, we would have 30 to 40 people.”
This is the town’s second effort to renew its 90-year-old school, which narrowly escaped demolition when voters in 2018 turned down a $46.6 million reconstruction partly funded by the state.
Tisbury now is on its own in updating the lead- and asbestos-tainted building, to meet the needs of the school’s educational plan and to safely serve the community while retaining its historic value.
In 2019, town voters approved up to $400,000 for design work to renovate and expand the existing structure. Tappé, which by coincidence had done work at the school in the 1990s, was hired in November as the building committee’s unanimous choice for the design job. The firm also designed the Edgartown Library.
Daedalus principal Richard Marks, who worked with the town on the earlier school proposal, remains the project manager.
Tisbury officials have engaged a financial specialist to investigate funding sources for the renovation and addition, recently estimated at about $55 million in 2021 dollars.
Once the costs and financing have been defined, committee members expect to take the school project to a special town meeting this fall.
The latest conceptual designs for the school are posted online , where there is also a link to Monday’s 5 p.m. meeting on Zoom.
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