The $381 million rebuilding and renovation of Lowell High School in Massachusetts is now midway to being finished and on track to be completed by the summer of 2026, according to representatives with the owner, design and building firms behind the construction.
Boston-based Suffolk Construction Co., along with Skanska, the project manager, and the architecture firm Perkins Eastman in New York City teamed up to present updates to the Lowell School Building Committee during a recent fall meeting.
"We're approaching almost halfway through the job in billings and construction," Skanska Project Manager Jim Dowd told the committee. "There is good alignment."
Planning for the rebuild began in 2016, the Lowell Sun reported Dec. 13, before the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) approved $210 million in 2019. Demolition and site preparation first got underway late in 2020.
By August 2022, the new Riddick Athletic Center opened, built on the former site of the medical building along Arcand Drive in Lowell, which the city acquired through eminent domain. That signaled the end of Phase 1 of the four-phased project.
Phase 2 commenced with the demolition of the old Riddick Field House, and the construction of the school's new Freshman Academy as well as the main entrance and cafeteria, known as Building D. That portion of the work is well under way and slated to be completed in 2024, said Pannha San-Chung, the senior project manager of Suffolk Construction.
She added that the construction team will begin building the third phase of the project next summer after school lets out.
It will encompass renovating the wing of the so-called "1980s building" that faces Father Morissette Boulevard and runs parallel to the Merrimack Canal. The structure was built in the 1980s to handle the ever-increasing student population at Lowell High. The second half of Phase 3 will involve renovating the Cyrus Irish Auditorium across the canal on Kirk Street.
Ongoing work in the Freshman Academy building includes drywall, taping and sanding in preparation for painting and final finishes, tiling in the bathrooms, and completing the façade work.
Dowd added that the priority was to enclose the buildings in its brick façade before winter.
Everything Pointing Toward a Project Finish in July 2026
Thirteen Lowell School Building Committee members attended the fall meeting, including the school system's new Interim Superintendent Liam Skinner, who asked the project team about progress on the high school's elevators and air conditioning.
Just after the start of the new fall semester, area temperatures hit 94 degrees on Sept. 7, followed by 90 degrees the next day, prompting Lowell Public Schools to cancel classes both days.
"Regardless of any potential decline in temperature by Friday, our buildings continue to get hotter," Skinner said at the time, adding that actual readings in many classrooms recorded temperature levels over 90 degrees, with some areas exceeding 100 degrees.
Joe Drown, a Perkins Eastman architect, told Skinner that the high school gymnasium's HVAC is already working, and the Phase 2 buildings of the Freshman Academy and D Building are on track toward completion.
Another school board member questioned whether parts to complete work on the eight elevators and electrical systems have arrived on site, given ongoing supply-chain shortages due to COVID-related delays and labor issues. Both San-Chung and Dowd said all the parts were ordered and stored at the beginning of the construction project.
Dowd cautioned that the first two segments of the work were straightforward rebuild projects, while Phases 3 and 4 were more complicated replacements of the existing older buildings.
"The next few phases are more renovations-geared," he explained.
Several positive financial metrics also were noted at the meeting, the Sun reported, including the construction contingency, or money set aside to pay for change orders from new requests or unforeseen construction requirements. That money is built into the overall budget figures.
"To date we've had 14 change orders, or $3.4 million out of the original $21.2 million contingency," Dowd said. "And [the] MSBA reimbursement to [the city so far] has cracked $100 million."
Conor Baldwin, the city of Lowell's chief financial officer, told the school board committee that his office coordinated the sale of a bond to finance about $30 million in cash with an interest rate of just over 4 percent for the local share of the project.
"We were borrowing at almost next to nothing in the beginning, but we're getting close to where we thought we would be [with] a projected interest rate of 5 percent," he said.
San-Chung noted that the construction schedule for the new Lowell High School is slated to be completed in July 2026, adding there were no potential problems on the horizon, according to the Sun.
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