The new Beverly Middle School is the largest middle school in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is designed to serve over 1,400 students in grades 5-8 in a four-story building totaling 231,000 square feet. The progressive program and building layout are a result of many educational visioning workshops, which included a review of the work of numerous educators and are evidence of how educational programs and environments can be structured to deliver positive educational, social and emotional outcomes. It included a look at past practices and a review of the evolution of education and the way society, economics, education and technology have evolved to influence the modern educational environment.
The workshops resulted in a program that included: breaking down a large school into 12 smaller neighborhoods organized along a centrally-located curved spine; incorporating a hands-on maker/builder space within each neighborhood; integrated small group breakout spaces adjacent to the academic classrooms as well as the neighborhood corridors; distributed dining and common spaces to promote use of the public spaces throughout the entire day; and distributed leadership and professional space for faculty and staff that promotes cross-discipline collaboration amongst educators.
CBRE|Heery served as the owner’s project manager providing a full range of professional construction management services for the $92-million middle school project in Beverly, Massachusetts. The team oversaw the entire project delivery from designer selection, through the study, schematic design and funding phase as well as for the early procurement of the construction manager at Risk Builder, the early package phase, final design and all construction, commissioning and turnover phases.
CBRE|Heery used the construction management at risk delivery method as this would result in completing and opening a new school a year sooner than if the more traditional design-bid-build delivery was used. The new Beverly Middle School welcomed its first students on August 29, 2018.