Amesbury Elementary School Building Committee

The Total Project Budget, outlined as part of the funding agreement with the MSBA, is $60,513,570. 

Roughly 60% of the project is being paid for by Amesbury taxpayers, with the other 40% being paid for by the Massachusetts School Building Authority. In May 2020, the City of Amesbury bonded $34.7M, with $30M of that going to the AES project. This bond will require a temporary tax increase, which began in 2021 for Amesbury residents by $80 per $100,000 home value.

Funding Sources

The contract has been awarded to CTA-Construction Managers, an award-winning, ENR top 100 Green Contractor based in Waltham. CTA specializes in large scale, complex, state of the art, LEED-certified buildings throughout Massachusetts. Locally, CTA built the Bresnahan Elementary School in Newburyport.

The grade configuration will be PK - 2 at the new Amesbury Elementary School and grades 3-5 at the existing Cashman Elementary School. While the AES Implementation Committee is fully researching the impacts of this change, initial reports show that the new grade configuration means students will receive the same quality educational and learning experience through common curriculum, leadership and related services with less communication and curriculum issues between two elementary schools. This configuration creates staffing efficiencies, teacher collaboration and professional development across each entire grade level.

There was a traffic study done in 2018 for this project, and it was determined that Lions Mouth Road will be able to accommodate the additional traffic created from having AES in this location along with CES. The intersection at Friend Street and Highland Street has been reconstructed with funding from a Complete Streets grant.

The stormwater management has been designed to be in compliance with the current Massachusetts Stormwater Management Regulations. Runoff from this project will not be directed towards the CES building, nor will it have any impact on the existing building. The existing drain system at the school has some capacity problems and the design team is proposing to make upgrades to improve those systems to make them function better.

DiNisco has $320,000 allocated for the relocation of the baseball fields on Woodsom Farm, and the City of Amesbury has bonded another $1.5M that was approved in Council Order 2019-016.