Senate boosts Essex Aggie, Tech project
Salem News
By Ethan Forman
Staff writer
DANVERS — A merged North Shore Technical and Essex Aggie high school inched closer to reality with the Senate's passage of a bond bill with $60 million in secured funding.
The passage of a series of bond bills, announced yesterday by Senate Majority Leader Fred Berry, D-Peabody, also contained nearly $32 million for a new allied health building, backfill and renovations to North Shore Community College's Danvers campus.
The community college's project would aid the Essex Aggie-North Shore merger by removing some of the college programs from Essex Aggie's 166-acre campus, which are housed in buildings that have seen better days.
In addition to the high-profile school projects, some Danvers residents who live not far from Route 128 may also get some relief from traffic noise with a bond bill's passage containing $150,000 for a sound barrier at 37 and 37R Elliott St. at the site of a new interchange.
A statement from Berry said a series of bond bills had passed both the Senate and the House and awaited the governor's signature.
Yesterday, Gov. Deval Patrick signed a 10-year, $2.2 billion higher education bond bill, paving the way for the new building at the Danvers campus of North Shore Community College, the college's president said.
"We are thrilled the governor signed the bond bill," Wayne Burton said. "It does include significant funding for the new allied health building in Danvers.
The bill contained money for a building Burton said has already been designed, with construction starting as soon as this year.
"That will pay for a roughly 60,000-square-foot building that we desperately need, for not only allied health but academic counseling, recruitment ... and others and backfill of the space some would move out of. ... It also gets our programs out of the Essex Aggie site."
Burton said the bill also includes $20 million for the expansion of the Lynn campus.
It was unclear yesterday evening where the $3 billion general government bond bill containing the North Shore Tech-Essex Aggie project stood, but some of those close to project hailed the Senate's passage as a good first step.
"He's very enthusiastic about this money," said Beth Mullen, a spokeswoman for Berry.
She reached him on a cell phone in New Hampshire yesterday where there was poor reception, so she relayed his message.
"He thinks it's a great first step," Mullen said.
"I did hear of the passage," said Amy O'Malley, superintendent director of North Shore Technical High School, a 16-community regional school housed in a former industrial building in Middleton.
The school offers a full academic course load along with a variety of technical courses, but it has to turn away students because the program has run out of space.
"It's another notch closer," O'Malley said. "It's part of the financial package we are trying to develop."
The $60 million would represent the state's share of the project, to be built off Route 62 (Maple Street).
Since Essex Aggie is a state school, O'Malley said the Legislature was asked to pay for a share of the project. More money is being sought under the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which pays for a portion of public school projects, since North Shore Technical School is a regional vocational school.
O'Malley said merger officials are hoping that 50 communities that would send students to the school would pick up no more than 20 percent of the renovations. The merger also involves Peabody High's vocational program now housed at Higgins Middle School.
