Framingham Schools, MassBay Lease Extension $200K Cheaper

FRAMINGHAM, MA — MassBay Community College will stay at the Farley Building in Framingham or another two years. The School Committee unanimously voted to extended the school's lease at Wednesday night's meeting. MassBay will pay $500,000 a year.

The rent is about $200,000 cheaper than what MAssBay currently pays, $755,000, but that's because the college will have significantly less parking spaces, due to the Fuller Middle School construction. The new lease starts on July 1 and once construction starts, MassBay will only have 152 parking spots — about 300 less than it usually has. No parking will be allowed on Tuesdays and Thursdays after 5:30 p.m. because the district holds its Adult ESL program.

The district and college are already looking toward the future, with talks planned for June 2020 for another two-year lease to bring the school through 2023. The college plans to have a new Health Science Center in Framingham built by that point.

A new perk for the city under MassBay's new lease, is access to the college's gym. "It's a new opportunity for the community here and I think it's just another reason to extend this lease for another two years," said Lincoln Lynch, the district's Executive Director of Finance and Operations.

School Committee member Beverly Hugo called the lease extension a win-win for both the college and the community. "MassBay benefits hundreds of our kids with several hundred thousand dollars worth of grants in making sure our middle school kids have summer enrichment and that our high school kids have dual enrollment," she said.

The college has strong ties to the community and the district highlighted the importance of maintaining those ties in the community to benefit residents. More than 50 Framingham residents work at MassBay, one out of every eight new students at MassBay are Framingham residents, and over the last decade over 5,000 Framingham residents have enrolled in a class at MassBay.

“We are grateful to the Framingham School District and Superintendent Tremblay for their support and renewal of the Farley Building lease to ensure MassBay’s programs stay in Framingham while we construct our new building,” said Dr. David Podell, President of MassBay Community College. “We consider the Framingham Public Schools to be a critical partner in our mission to build a well-educated and skilled workforce to strengthen the MetroWest economy.”

MassBay's contract will expire on June 30, 2021.