Click image for Haverhill City Council agenda.
Superintendent Maureen Lynch answers Haverhill City Council questions tonight about the proposed $444.6 million replacement of Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School.
Residents of the school’s 11 member communities are scheduled to vote on the plan Tuesday, Jan. 23.
With reimbursement from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, district taxpayers are expected to share the $264 million cost of the three-story, W-shaped building. It will house mostly vocational, specialty, support and community programs on the first two floors and academic classes on the third. The campus will include new baseball and softball diamonds, tennis and basketball courts and a soccer field. The current stadium will remain.
The Whittier School Building Committee chose to replace rather than renovate Whittier Tech last February, following discussions that began in 2016. In a February 2023 interview on WHAV’s “Win For Breakfast” program, Lynch said the school’s maintenance team could barely keep the 50-year-old buildings functional.
“These buildings were built in the 1970s. There’s asbestos. Once you start pulling that up, that’s a whole other thing,” she said. “And, once you know, when you start a construction project, when you get behind the walls, there are some serious issues…We are being held together by duct tape.”
Issues include flooding, a malfunctioning wastewater treatment plant, outdated heating and cooling systems, accessibility challenges that do not satisfy the Americans with Disabilities Act, electrical safety code violations and a general lack of space, according to the Whittier Building Project website.
Pending approval, construction would begin in 2025, with the new school opening in September 2028. The public may estimate how much their taxes would increase using a calculator on one of the web pages.
The Haverhill City Council meets at 7 p.m., in-person at the Theodore A. Pelosi Jr. Council Chambers, room 202, Haverhill City Hall, 4 Summer St. As a public service, 97.9 WHAV plans to carry the meeting live.