City Council approves Wonderland site for new high school

Former councillor warns taking Wonderland could hurt city’s tax rolls

  Next stop, Wonderland for the new Revere High School, says the Revere City Council.

  Monday night the City Council followed the School Committee and School Building Committee in approving the 30-plus-acre former Wonderland dog park property as the site of a new Revere High School. The council voted 9-0 to select Wonderland as the preferred site, with Councillors-at-Large Dan Rizzo and George Rotondo absent Monday night.

  The vote sets in motion several next steps, including a filing of the site selection with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) by March 3, a second appraisal of the site value and negotiations by the city to either purchase all the Wonderland property or the 25 acres needed for the school building project. The city will also need to hire a construction manager for the project.

  Prior to the final council vote, Brian Dakin, the project manager from owner’s project manager LeftField, said there were two overriding reasons why the school and building committees went with the Wonderland site property rather than the current high school site. “One is the idea that construction at Wonderland has significantly less impact to the ongoing operation of the school and the delivery of education, and it was perceived as having less impact to the neighborhood with fewer abutters,” said Dakin. “Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the Wonderland decision, according to the committees, allowed the city to control current and future enrollment increases in the system.”

  The existing high school site would still be in play as the site of a future magnet middle school. In turn, the current middle schools could then be repurposed to help deal with increased enrollment in the elementary schools.

  Many of the questions from the council on Monday night centered on the potential land acquisition costs of the Wonderland property. “Remove the land acquisition, and Wonderland is six to seven million dollars less than building on the existing site, mostly because of underground issues [at the current high school],” said Dakin. “With the acquisition of Wonderland, it has a higher ultimate value. We have an appraisal that was done on the Wonderland parcels, but we will need a second appraisal.”

  The MSBA grant for the school building project does not cover land acquisition costs.

  Dakin said the initial appraisal came in at $30 million for the entire site, and $23 million for the land needed for the high school alone.

  In the coming months, the city will have to decide if it wants to take the entire property, or just the land needed for the high school and let the current owners decide how to develop the approximately seven to eight remaining acres. Mayor Brian Arrigo has been among those who have said they would like to see the city explore taking the entire property, so that it could then control the fate of the future development of the parcel adjacent to the high school.

  Estimates for the total cost of building a new high school at Wonderland come in at about $395 million, with the city covering about $247 million not covered by the MSBA grants.

  “A lot of residents say it’s going to cost the city $250 to $275 million, and how is the city going to pay for that,” said City Council President Gerry Visconti. “That’s a big question we need to explain to our residents.”

  Richard Viscay, the city’s Chief Financial Officer, said the cost of debt payments for the project should be covered by new growth, primarily from the massive Suffolk Downs mixed-use project and any future development on the remaining acreage at Wonderland. “The site at Suffolk Downs – they forecast ultimately $40 million in new tax revenue will come in over a 20-year phased period,” said Viscay.

  Viscay said the planning and assessing departments are working together to get a clearer idea on those new growth revenue numbers and how they will be used to cover the costs of the high school project. “We have to dovetail in all this new growth in paying for all that debt for a project that somewhere around 2029 could be at least $14 million [annually] of new debt on the books,” said Viscay.

  While the current City Council backed the Wonderland site selection, former City Councillor Anthony Zambuto stated his opposition to the project, noting that it will take too much potential revenue off the city’s tax rolls. “I’m trying to prevent the city from making the most fiscally irresponsible mistake in the city’s history,” said Zambuto. “It’s not about the $25 million or $50 million it’s going to cost to take the property at Wonderland; it’s not about the $250 or $275 million it’s going to cost in construction of the school; it’s about taking Wonderland off the tax rolls.”

  Currently, the property brings in about $500,000 in taxes to the city, according to a report from LeftField. The report also stated that if the 8.65 acres not needed for the high school were developed similarly to the comparable Waterfront Square development across the street, it would bring in about $5 million per year in taxes.