New Concord Middle School Costs? Around $176 Million, SAU 8 Docs Say

CONCORD, NH — The Concord School District has begun the process of submitting an application requesting state aid for a new middle school with a $176 million price tag being floated for the project.

Draft reports have been posted on the SAU 8 website featuring hundreds of pages reviewing the condition of the current building, which is around 50 years old in one section and 30 years in another and has been renovated a number of times, as well as an overview of expected costs, possible site locations, potential future student demographics, financials, and other data.

View all the SAU 8 Concord School District Rundlett Middle School Project docs online here.

The estimated $176.5 million price includes about $105 million for construction, close to $32.8 million for planning and design costs, more than $20 million for site acquisition and development, and $3.6 million for furniture, fixtures, and equipment. Another $15 million is being budgeted in a 5 percent contingency and “other” costs — meaning the school could be less than the estimated posted in the filing.

The estimate does not include state aid, which could be as high as 40 percent, pending approval, and the Legislature budgeting money. It also does not include interest on the borrowing — which could add tens of millions of dollars, if not more, to the final cost to taxpayers for the project.

The district received a number of low-interest rates for the elementary school consolidation project although the final cost was still $90.8 million, despite both media outlets like the Concord Monitor and consolidation supporters repeatedly floating much lower financials at the time.

The project never led to any consolidation savings — a major promotional tool made to the public repeatedly during many years of hearings.

The bonding for the consolidation project, about $3 million annually in the district’s nearly $100 million annual budget, will not be paid off until 2041. Other tax rates, like the bonding for improvements to Concord High School, paid off many years ago, were never eliminated.

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Kathleen Murphy, the school district's superintendent, called the $176.5 million estimate “crazy,” but said there was still a lot of work to do and this was only the first step in the process.

“(It’s) another year or two years out,” she said. “We’ve got some time. (And) we aren’t going to know if we have building aid until February or March (2023, during) the next Legislative session, and that’s where the money is.”

Everything at this point, Murphy said, was “speculative,” while calling the process “hard.” The district and the board do not want to get everyone upset about costs, location, or anything else until more information was available, she added. The district has not, as an example, firmed up a purchase and sale agreement for land at Clinton Street near Langley Parkway that is owned by Centerpoint Church, a potential location for a new school. Murphy said the district really did not want to spend a lot of money to access land for the school.

“The board hasn’t decided what to do with the land (or siting),” she said. “We are doing our due diligence.”

Murphy noted when Nashua applied for its middle school building aid, it did not have a site before petitioning for the money.

The district, too, was looking at land it owns around the Broken Ground Elementary and Mill Brook Primary schools. The district owns 104 acres in multiple parcels including the area where the two schools are now. There is also another 121 acres of land the district co-owns with the city, according to assessing information.

There were concerns about the cost to run water and sewer piping on the back parcels. But close to 10 acres of land runs along Portsmouth Street to the west of Broken Ground. With a transportation reconfiguration and moving fields to the other parcels, a new middle school or a smaller, second middle school which has been discussed in the past, could easily be constructed there on land the district already owns.

“That is not off the table,” Murphy said about eyeing parcels around Broken Ground, although she noted there were issues with the concept. “They know they have to do something about Rundlett (but) the board hasn’t finalized (anything).”

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