MAVA Members,
We are pleased to extend this exciting news and congratulations to all of our MAVA colleagues at Diman Regional Vocational Technical HS in Fall River.
David
Diman Voc-Tech reaches new milestone, smaller budget in ‘future-thinking’ build
Emily Scherny The Herald News
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<![endif]>FALL RIVER — Diman’s school building committee, in partnership with the Massachusetts School Building Authority, has settled on a new budget — $240.7 million — for the highly anticipated new Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School. “It’s an enormously successful GMP,” said Matteo Batista, Suffolk Construction project executive of the guaranteed maximum price of the project at the School Building Committee meeting on Dec. 2. “We were able to get to that budget while including alternates that, when we made this budget, we weren’t sure if we would be able to afford.”
Suffolk Construction said much of the steel work and sequencing is expected to wrap up in January 2025, and a portion of the roof has been completed for a four-story learning community, one of three the new school will offer.
As colder, snowy weather draws near, builders have prioritized keeping the interior warm and dry while fireproofing is underway, said Greg Joynt, an associate principal designer and architect at Kaestle Boos, an architectural firm involved in the project’s design, which is overseen by the build’s project owners, Colliers.
Beam-signing ceremony planned
To mark the project’s next phase, Brian Bentley, superintendent for the Greater Fall River Vocational School District, said a milestone beam-lifting ceremony will be held Wednesday, Dec. 11, at 1 p.m., where Diman students will initial the beam, and invitees will sign the beam in advance of its placement at 2:15 p.m. “That’s when it’ll be lifted by a crane,” Bentley said. Since the ceremonial groundbreaking in November 2023, Bentley has heralded the build as “a new and promised chapter,” one that “break barriers” and continues to represent the Greater Fall River Vocational School District Committee’s commitment to providing exceptional education.
Four itemized expenses were added to the ledger for project funding, including a separate storage building for $600,441 with a cost savings of roughly $15,000.
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<![endif]>Since the ceremonial groundbreaking in November 2023, Bentley has heralded the build as “a new and promised chapter,” one that “break barriers” and continues to represent the Greater Fall River Vocational School District Committee’s commitment to providing exceptional education.
Four itemized expenses were added to the ledger for project funding, including a separate storage building for $600,441 with a cost savings of roughly $15,000.
Theater equipment — lighting, rigging, drapery, and controls — was adopted for $529,331 and is slated to be subcontracted by lighting company Barbizon.
Maple strip gymnasium flooring was approved under budget by $32,495, for $376,500, awarded to Pavilion Floors.
Fixed upholstered auditorium seating, a more comfortable alternative to the current Diman auditorium seating, rang up at $371,700 after $15,000 in savings, with Highland Seating recommended. The new auditorium will have upwards of 500 seats, though 1,000 square feet needed to be shorn off its footprint.
“We had to get on budget,” maintained Don DiBlasio, Somerset’s representative on the Greater Fall River Vocational School District Committee and the chair of the School Building Committee.
The 30-month project is expected to be finalized with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony in June 2026. Students will enter the new building that September.
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<![endif]>Extending the school’s legacy another 60 years
The current Diman building broke ground in 1963, and since 1968 it has served students and faculty. In the last 15 years, the aging building earned quips about its modest, 250,000-square-footage. With 1,450 students enrolled in 18 different vocational programs, that tight squeeze will be avoided with the size of the new build projected to rise four stories and nearly double, graduating to 395,000 square feet.
The project’s price tag was originally reported to be $293.2 million, though the Massachusetts School Building Authority, a quasi-governmental agency that works with school districts to fund major construction projects, will reimburse 52% of the cost. To date, Suffolk was able to lower its construction contingencies from 2.25% to 1.8%, as now 90% has been procured, lowering associated risks, and driving costs down. The GMP has been amended seven times.
Another $20 million for the Diman build originated from $200 million in state funding secured by Sen. Michael Rodrigues to supplement the cost of school builds, a sector hard hit by COVID-related increases in construction costs. Fall River, Somerset, Swansea, and Westport send students to Diman — with Fall River accounting for almost eight out of 10 students — and have agreed to split the remaining costs proportional to their share of attending students.
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<![endif]>Rapid progress being made where athletic fields once were
In March, the build was but a crater between the existing school and Route 24. Now, with rapid progress taking place in line with sophisticated designs that are “geared toward making [the building] as ‘repurposable’ as possible,” Joynt said, discussions of loam removal — an expense of $860,000 — are in the works.
The current planning for the build allows for future modifications, too. “It’s not ‘future-proof,’” Joynt added, “but it’s certainly ‘future-thinking,’” he said of the interior. Utilities and other systems can be replaced without much disruption to other connecting components.
Landscaping is the largest remaining scope.
Though Suffolk is the same general contractor that oversaw construction on the new B.M.C. Durfee High School, renderings of the new Diman depict a modern style of architecture, unlike Durfee’s design that echoes the city’s past. After the new school opens, the current building will be demolished.
David J. Ferreira
MAVA Communications Coordinator
DavidFerreira
