The Tisbury School’s two-year, $81 million renovation and addition — the largest building project in town history — is drawing to a close, with classes set to resume Sept. 3 on all three floors of the original school building.

Teachers began setting up their classrooms this week, unpacking boxes amid newly-delivered furniture, said school committee chair Amy Houghton.

“It’s looking like a real school,” she said.

The renovated complex has 70,000 square feet of interior space, compared to 56,000 before construction began in 2022. It’s the first new work on the 95-year-old school since an addition was built in 1995. 

The new project has been in the making for more than a decade.

Ray Ewing

The new project has been in the making for more than a decade.

Ray Ewing

The new gymnasium and band room will take a few weeks longer to complete, Ms. Houghton said, citing supply chain slowdowns and summer labor shortages.

“There are a lot of people working on Saturday and Sunday now, and they are determined to get the project done,” she added.

Access to the gym and band room will be blocked off to students until the work is done later this fall, Ms. Houghton said.

Exterior landscaping work is also going on through the autumn months, she said, with children continuing to use a field behind the town’s nearby emergency services building until their campus play areas are finished.

The school committee is planning a public open house Oct. 26 to showcase the renovation and addition, Ms. Houghton said.

The reopening caps a tumultuous, 14-year quest for a better Tisbury School that began in 2011.

In his first year on the job, principal John Custer — himself a 1984 graduate of the school — formed a facilities needs committee and won voter approval for a feasibility study. After multiple applications to the Massachusetts School Building Authority grant program, Tisbury was accepted in 2016 with the stipulation that an all-new school would be built.

A $34 million bond measure for the project passed at the 2018 annual town meeting, but failed by 21 votes at the ballot box, leading Tisbury to withdraw from the MSBA program and forfeit a promised $14 million in state reimbursements.

Some parts of the school will be unfinished at the start of the school year.

Ray Ewing

Some parts of the school will be unfinished at the start of the school year.

Ray Ewing

As the school committee regrouped to try another approach, the discovery of flaking lead paint in student areas posed an emergency in the summer of 2019.

Tisbury started classes a week late that year, with fifth through eighth graders relocated to the high school campus for the first semester while remediation work took place in the affected classrooms, at a total cost to taxpayers of nearly $2 million.

A reworked plan to renovate and expand the old school won voter support in 2021, to the tune of $55 million in 30-year bonds, followed by an additional $26 million in 2022 after a sharp rise in construction estimates.

The original Tisbury School, built in 1929, has now been gutted, with hazardous materials removed and old fixtures stripped away to create spacious classrooms with high ceilings and abundant natural light from weathertight windows.

The elevator was due for inspection this week, after a long wait, Ms. Houghton said.

“We don’t have anyone on the Island who can inspect elevators, so you’re relying upon the very few who are certified in the state,” she said.

The total cost for the Tisbury School project covers a flat $70 million for construction and more than $11 million in administrative costs, architects’ fees and other expenses. 

The school committee hired W.T. Rich Co. as its construction manager at risk, charged with holding costs at $70 million or less. If the work comes in for less than $70 million, the company — not the town — will keep the difference.

That approach has worked so well that the team will be able to add solar roof panels, originally considered too costly for the project, Ms. Houghton said.

“W.T. Rich and Tappé [Architects] were able to gain some savings through some subcontractors... so that we were able to add that back,” she said. 

“The engineering is underway [and] that’s with no extra money,” Ms. Houghton said. “It really has been a win for us.”

Another engineering change to the 95-year-old school is invisible from the street: the original front door has been preserved, but no longer leads to a hallway, stairs and offices as in the past. Now inoperable, the door is backed by a classroom wall. The new school entrance is off the parking lot, which has been raised to the level of the buildings that formerly were reached by stairs.

The changes have been so profound, Ms. Houghton said, that some teachers found themselves disoriented when they first returned to campus this week. But the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, she said, praising the Rich and Tappé team.

When the new gymnasium is completed it will include a larger playing area, bleachers and a performance stage equipped with audiovisual technology. Behind the stage are the new band room and another music room, Ms. Houghton said. 

“The gym is amazing,” she said. “People will be floored when they see it.”

Once the gym is open, Tisbury voters will again have a gathering place for annual and special town meetings and other assemblies too large for Katharine Cornell Theatre.

“I think the town will be proud to have it as such a nice community meeting spot,” Ms. Houghton said.

Along with the gym and arts addition, the school has a small new administrative wing for office staff. There’s also a brand-new cafeteria, with plenty of room for students who formerly had to eat in shifts due to lack of space in the old school. A windowed interior wall gives them a view of the gymnasium.

“They’ve done such a fabulous job,” Ms. Houghton said of the project.