Natick and Plymouth,Ma —Pare Corporation (PARE), a planning and engineering firm with offices in Foxboro, MA and Lincoln, RI, completed engineering services for two new high schools that opened their doors to students this September. Designed and constructed under the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Model School Program, the new $78.5 million, 255,000- SF Natick High School and the new $83 million, 268,000-SF Plymouth North High School are based on a similar design, yet uniquely customized for their communities and adapted to their respective sites. Working collaboratively with a design team led by Ai3 Architects, PARE provided site/civil, geotechnical, environmental, traffic, permitting, and LEED documentation services for both projects.
Each school required significant site feasibility analysis to fit the new buildings, parking and athletic facilities on sites next to the schools they were replacing. In both cases, additional parking and athletic fields are still to be constructed on the sites following the demolition of the old schools. A PARE-designed synthetic turf football/multipurpose/track & field facility has already been constructed at each school in time for the fall football season.
The 1,500-student Natick High School and the 1,225-student Plymouth North High School will seek LEED certification based on their numerous energy-reducing and environmentally friendly features including green roofs, provisions for solar panels, rain-collection systems to collect and reuse storm runoff, and HVAC and lighting systems that sense room use and adjust automatically.
Both schools were completed on schedule and under budget. At Plymouth North High School, the A/E team also designed an adjacent 18,000-SF Senior Center for the Plymouth Council on Aging. The facility is scheduled to open by the end of the year.