Opening of new Rogers High School pushed back to 2025. An in-depth look at how we got here
The new Rogers High School building, the bond to fund which was approved by Newport voters in 2020, has faced hiccup after road bump, thanks in large part to inflation costs associated with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September, the School Building Committee, co-chaired by Rebecca Bolan and Louisa Boatwright, received the Guaranteed Maximum Price from the project management team at Downes Construction, indicating the building will cost $110,020,581 to build, which is about $14.6 million over budget. The committee also received news the timeline to occupy the new building has been pushed back to summer 2025.
Recently, Superintendent Colleen Burns Jermain presented a plan to address the shortfall. This includes using $2 million from the project’s contingency fund, bringing the gap down to $12.6 million, asking the School Committee to use money from the School Department’s education fund and asking the City Council for additional help.
How did the project get this over budget? Here’s a timeline of how we got here:
2017
September
Rhode Island Department of Education releases a ‘State of Rhode Island Schoolhouses report,’ which identified Rogers High School as having $37,962,800 in deficiencies, placing the building well over the cost threshold for replacement and securing the building as the school with the worst building condition of any in the state. The state predicted it would cost $73,800,000 to replace the building.
2018
May
RFP for a firm to develop a Comprehensive Long-Term Master Education and Facilities Plan for Newport Public Schools closed on April 3, 2018. It received six responses. Architecture Firm Studio JAED of Providence is selected. Studio JAED was responsible for the designs of the project used in the city’s Necessity of School Construction Stage I and Stage II applications to RIDE.
2019
June
Superintendent Colleen Burns Jermain sends letters to Middletown and Portsmouth, asking the two municipalities whether they would be interested in unifying school districts, a move which would have increased the amount of money RIDE reimbursed for the school construction project. Middletown Town Council later votes against continuing discussions of school district unification. Portsmouth voted to have discussions, but the effort died off after a few sessions.
Newport School Committee and Newport City Council send a Letter of Intent to RIDE’s Necessity of School Construction program.
August
Studio JAED presented the first concept design to the Newport City Council and School Committee on Aug. 15. The preliminary plans show a 249,000-square-foot school campus that would cost around $153 million. The proposal includes a new early learning center serving kindergarten and pre-kindergarten at the site of the vacant Coggeshall School, adding $20.13 million to the total project. The total proposed school project was projected to cost $173.46 million.
September
Newport City Council unanimously votes to submit a Stage 1 application to RIDE. This stage of RIDE’s Necessity of School Construction program identifies to the department why the municipality needs to build a new facility.
2020
February
Newport City Council approves submitting the RIDE Stage II application, which RIDE calls the “Development of a Solution” stage. This 619-page application shows the early schematic design documents.
May
The Memorandum of Agreement between RIDE and the city sets limits on size of the project at 165,783 square feet and allows Newport to take out a $106 million bond, with $98,862,667 million established for new Rogers High School construction and $7,472,300 million for an addition to Pell Elementary School. With incentive bonuses established in 2020, RIDE is expected to reimburse the city for 52.2% of the construction costs.
Newport City Council votes to place a $106 million bond on the November ballot.
November
78% of Newport voters approve the school bond.
December
Downes Construction is awarded the RFP to provide Owner’s Project/Program Manager services for the project.
2021
January
The Ad Hoc School Building Committee unanimously votes to go with a Construction Manager at Risk approach to the Rogers project, which was recommended by Downes for big projects. The construction manager model is important because it allows the team to adapt the design as bid prices come in, which is how the project has gone through so many revisions and design changes.
March
S/L/A/M Collaborative is hired as the design team for the project.
June
A S/L/A/M presentation shows one of many conceptual Rogers High School designs. This one is bigger than the Stage II submission and the RIDE MOA at 217,700 gross square feet, partially because it includes 2,970 square feet for a cosmetology classroom and 5,870 square feet for an automotive classroom. These spaces were considered “add alternates” at the time, because neither cosmetology nor automotive qualified for reimbursements from RIDE.
October
Throughout the summer and early fall, S/L/A/M, Downes Construction and Gilbane were refining and redesigning the building to try and account for increasing inflation impacting the construction costs. In October, the School Building Committee receives a “big reality check for RHS,” as Bolan and Boatwright describe it in their weekly update, when they review the 60% Schematic Design Reconciliation, a part of the Construction Manager At Risk model. It reveals the project is estimated to cost $118.4 million, about 49% over budget. The project is also larger than the RIDE MOA, at 197,000 gross square feet.
December
As the School Building Committee and high school construction team continue revising plans to decrease the overall cost of the project, they begin considering submitting a new Stage I application to fund aspects of the project that were included in the original Stage II application but have to be cut for budget concerns. The items suggested to be included as a part of this new funding process are classrooms for Automotive and Cosmetology, a separate central office building, the west parking lot, the hammer throw field and the practice field.
2022
January
The Official Schematic Design for the new Rogers High School to be submitted to RIDE is approved by the School Committee. The project is 165,552 gross square feet and Gilbane estimates the building is $6.6 million over target budget.
PARE Engineering, which is responsible for testing the soil on site, holds its first environmental due diligence meeting with the community. They collect community input through a survey.
February
Newport City Council approves use of bond premiums on the project.
S/L/A/M shifts the site of the new building following concerns over the area near Wickham Road.
Newport and Middletown rekindle discussions on regionalization as Middletown faces its own school building bond projects.
March
The Rhode Island Health and Educational Building Corporation (RIBEC), which is responsible for financing school bonds, closed the bond, earning $14.4 million in premiums. This brings the project budget up to $107.5 million.
The School Building Committee receives a draft geotechnical report from PARE Engineering which shows elevated levels of contaminants, such as lead and arsenic, in the soil on site, especially where the current track and field sits. This complicates finding a proper location for the new synthetic track and field without adding $11 to $13 million in additional costs and the school building committee has further testing done on site.
May
Downes presents the 60% Design Documents estimate, which shows the project tracking about $12.2 million over budget. The value engineering options presented by Downes cut the overage down to $3.5 million over budget, however. Optimistically, the committee puts add alternates, such as space for the Automotive and Cosmetology programs, back into the design, hoping the bond premiums will be enough to cover the added costs.
June
Design Development documents are approved and sent to RIDE.
RHS has its groundbreaking ceremony on June 11
July
Newport and Middletown hold a joint meeting on regionalization.
September
The School Building Committee discovers new wetland regulations from RIDEM went into effect in July that requires the project meet an additional requirement before they secure a permit to build there. Bolan and Boatwright note concerns in their weekly updates about this issue delaying the project schedule. This permit is later issued in February 2023.
November
The School Building Committee and Downes present the 60% Construction Documents estimate which was originally supposed to be delivered on Oct. 11. The project is 180,661 square feet and estimated to be $14 to $20 million over budget. This delay caused concern from several community members, including some city councilors, that the School Building Committee was suppressing information that would have impacted the regionalization vote on Nov. 8, but Bolan and Boatwright rejected this accusation.
December
The School Building Committee asks the School Committee whether it can use about $3 to $4 million from the committee’s “fund balance,” to help bridge the funding gap, but this would have left a $4.2 million hole needed to fund shelling spaces for the Automotive program, Cosmetology program and Central Offices. The School Committee decides to hold off until actual numbers from bids come in.
2023
January
Excavation begins on the new Rogers High School site and Gilbane begins stockpiling soil behind the NACTC building.
March
A portion of the soil stockpile is tested and reveals some contamination. This soil is isolated in a separate pile. Abutters begin sharing concerns over the soil stockpile’s health implications.
May
SLAM submits Construction Documents to RIDE.
Gilbane alerts the School Building Committee that the timelines are moving further away from the planned finish date.
Recommendations to Award come in that are 30% to 40% more expensive than predicted by the 60% Construction Documents estimate, leading to more budget concerns.
City Council and School Committee hold a joint public meeting on budget concerns regarding the project.
RI Energy informs the School Building Committee that in order to properly power the new school building, the school department would have to purchase and maintain its own transformer. The School Building Committee begins discussions with RI Energy to see whether other high school projects have had to do the same and whether they have other, less costly options. Gilbane suggests this issue might cause further schedule delays.
July
Matting is ordered to cover the dirt pile.
Newport City Council holds a special meeting on the Rogers High School project to get an idea of the budget issues and soil stockpile concerns. As a result, the council orders work to stop until independent testing of the soil is conducted and also approves Stage I application for Auto, Cosmetology and Central Office and Athletic Fields.
September
Sept. 18, the SBC heard from Gilbane that the project will cost $110 million (technically $110,020,581 (the Guaranteed Maximum Price) and the date for completion has been pushed to summer 2025, coming up closer to the hard RIDE deadline of December 2025 for occupancy. Any later and reimbursement schedule will be impacted.
October
Jermain presents the School Building Committee a plan forward to address the budget shortfall.
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Rogers High School project: Timeline of hurdles as 2025 opening eyed
