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The new school at 115 Sycamore Street

Updated September 21, 2026

What's happening

Somerville has locked in its choice: a 925-seat PK-8 school at 115 Sycamore Street, the Winter Hill site, at a total project budget of about $224.5 million, designed by Perkins Eastman. The city submitted its Preferred Schematic Report — the state filing that names one design and closes off the others — to the Massachusetts School Building Authority during the week of August 24 and announced the choice on September 9. The state's Facilities Assessment Subcommittee was to take it up on September 16 or 30, and a favorable recommendation would send the project into schematic design this fall (Sept. 8 digest) (outcome not in our sources yet).

The vote that sent it was not unanimous. Council President Lance Davis, who sits on the School Committee, was the lone vote against the 925-seat submission, calling a "massive, nearly 1,000-seat school at the expense of two of our smallest and most creative, successful or innovative schools" a "huge mistake"; School Committee Vice Chair Leiran Biton, who opposed consolidation in the spring, voted yes "to avoid any delays," saying "that debate is over" (Tufts Daily, Sept. 10). Chair Emily Ackman's case is fiscal as much as educational: one MSBA-funded project for two buildings "beyond their usable lifespan" instead of two.

The design is "Option 4," roughly 180,600 square feet organized into three age-based "clusters" (PreK–3, 4–6, 7–8) around a shared cafetorium and gym sized for community use after hours, with the schoolyard kept where it is and the site's slope used for a "rooftop" play space reachable at street level from Evergreen and Sycamore streets (Aug. 3 School Building Committee presentation; city announcement, Sept. 9). The Cambridge/Somerville Independent describes it as six stories; no other source gives a height. Building at 925 seats means about 250 seats move out of the Benjamin G. Brown School at 201 Willow Ave. — the practical effect is that the Brown, Somerville's only K-5 school, eventually closes. Wilson has promised it stays open "through at least the 2031/32 school year".

An organized opposition wants 690 seats instead and says the closure decision was made before the city studied its consequences; it has more than 1,200 residents on record demanding answers. It lost the August round. The next real leverage point is the debt-exclusion vote — a property-tax override — in the second half of 2027.

The story

A ceiling collapse, then eighteen months of nothing

On June 2, 2023 a piece of concrete fell in a stairwell of the Winter Hill Community Innovation School, an 89,410-square-foot building from 1974, after years of deferred maintenance, and the building closed (Independent, Sept. 9). Its students have been at the Edgerly Education Center ever since. The Brown, more than a century old, has been on the replace-or-renovate list for years.

The School Building Authority — the quasi-independent state agency that pays roughly 40–50% of an approved municipal school project — invited Somerville into its eligibility period on Dec. 13, 2023, and the city cleared every deliverable by November 2024, which bought it a 913-day feasibility study.

Then-Mayor Katjana Ballantyne appointed a Construction Advisory Group of parents, elected officials and residents to answer the one question the School Building Committee was explicitly barred from deciding: rebuild Winter Hill alone, or build one school that swallows the Brown too. The process went badly. Matthew Daniels, the Winter Hill parent on the CAG, told the Tufts Daily that "there was about 18 months where the city did not make any direct communication to the Winter Hill community about this project." Emily Ackman, then the School Committee's chair, said Ballantyne "was pretty clear that all of these decisions … were hers," and that the committee voted on the draft recommendations without being asked to, because staying silent "would be an abdication of responsibility."

Two numbers shocked people along the way. Cambridge Day reported in June 2025 that a timeline given in 2023 as five to seven years had become 2031, and that the size under discussion had climbed from about 600 students to 925 — a number Brown parent and CAG member Ryan Williams said "was not something that anyone was really familiar with outside of this group."

The 925 recommendation

The CAG issued its final recommendation in December 2025: unanimous on building at 115 Sycamore, and a majority for building to the maximum capacity the state will fund, which is 925 students. A third piece of the report — a majority vote that the School Committee should still run its own process on whether closing the Brown is appropriate — is the piece the opposition says the city keeps skipping.

Wilson, who took office in January 2026, issued a statement on Jan. 22 committing to "building our community's new school, with the largest possible capacity, at 115 Sycamore Street as quickly as possible," and spelling out that "approximately 250 seats would ultimately be relocated from the Brown School." He also promised the city will actively maintain the Brown and that currently enrolled students can finish K-5 there.

The city moved fast after that. The School Committee approved the educational program and space plan 7-4-2, and on March 23 the School Building Committee voted 10-2 to carry only the 925-seat options forward — a decision School Committee member Leiran Biton announced mid-meeting to the Council's school buildings committee (March 23 digest). The Preliminary Design Program went to the MSBA on March 31 (Aug. 3 project schedule). The state came back asking for a condition assessment of the Brown and a test fit for 925 students on the Willow Ave. lot; Infrastructure and Asset Management Director Rich Raiche said the answer was "a very slender high rise" of around 23 stories that "would make the Cobble Hill development in Davis Square look quaint" (April 30 digest; a May 14 report to the Council said 17 stories, and the August slides show 12- and 20-story versions).

"Stop gaslighting us"

Somerville Neighborhood School Advocacy — yard signs, an email campaign, a website — wants a 690-seat school on the same site on the same schedule. Its arguments: 925 seats more than double traffic on Sycamore Street, eliminate one of three walkable elementary options on the west side with no replacement, and cost more to build and operate. Kindergarten availability at West Somerville Neighborhood School and the Kennedy is already zero, and Clarendon Hill's 591 new units will add demand next door; relocating seats two miles east is not capacity-neutral for the families losing a walkable school.

Their sharpest process complaint is a sequencing one: the city says a redistricting and catchment plan arrives by fall 2026, but the submission that locks in 925 seats went out in August. The district's own answer concedes the change "will affect student assignment and family choice across the district," and notes that about 44% of families already don't pick their proximity school first for kindergarten.

In a July 22 Somerville Times op-ed titled "Stop Gaslighting Us," the group went after the numbers. At a June 22 meeting with Wilson, Carmona and SPS communications chief Darryl Nash, they say Wilson repeatedly cited $90 million as the cost of bringing the Brown into ADA compliance — a figure that, per a 2025 city report to the CAG, actually covers ADA work plus a new cafeteria and gymnasium; a 2022 plan put the full addition at $43 million and ADA work alone closer to $2 million. They also report Carmona saying the new school would have four classrooms per grade while the MSBA filing shows five to six, and say the MSBA emailed the city on July 1 asking it to answer some of these concerns directly.

What the numbers actually say

The August 3 cost estimates put a price on the 690-versus-925 argument. New construction at Sycamore for 690 students (Option 2A) carries a total project budget of $198.6 million; the same approach at 925 students (Option 2B) is $226.1 million. The three 925-seat finalists came in at $224.5 million (Option 4), $217.0 million (Option 4.1, a compact footprint) and $226.5 million (Option 4.2, cafeteria under the Thurston Street field). Simply repairing the closed Winter Hill building would be $84.1 million; a 925-seat building on the Brown site would run $247.4–262.9 million. Geothermal, underground parking and a solar canopy are priced separately as add-alternates, at $7.9 million, $15.6 million and $3.7 million.

The School Building Committee worked through the three finalists on Aug. 3 and set an Aug. 17 vote on the submission; the School Committee took the whole package — process summary, PSR options, the committee's evaluation, the preferred schematic — at a special meeting on Aug. 10. Both approved, and the report went to the state. The sources disagree on the day: Biton says he voted on Aug. 17, the Independent dates both bodies' votes to Aug. 18, and the city's own announcement gives no date.

What the state review has turned up so far is underground. Test borings found no foundation problems but high ledge, which becomes a major cost if underground parking requires blasting, and bedrock that looks favorable for geothermal; a go/no-go decision on geothermal is expected around February 2027, with air-source heat pumps as the fallback. No geothermal system exists anywhere in Somerville, public or private, so the city would be "pioneering." The state's follow-up questions were answered by Perkins Eastman in under 24 hours, and Ward 5 Councilor Naima Sait urged staff to chase state geothermal incentives now "because a lot of those funds and programs are going away" (Sept. 8 digest).

The city borrows its share, and Massachusetts requires voter approval to raise taxes above the Proposition 2½ levy limit to carry that debt. That vote — the debt exclusion — is the one moment residents get a direct say; the city's timeline points to November 2027, while the August 3 project schedule shows a special ballot vote in June. The City Council, which must approve School Building Committee spending, is the second pressure point. See the FY27 budget and the school budget authority fight for how tight the money already is, and school buildings for the condition of the schools students are in now.

What's next

  • Sept. 16 or 30, 2026 — MSBA Facilities Assessment Subcommittee review of the Preferred Schematic Report (outcome not in our sources yet); a favorable recommendation advances the project to schematic design later this fall, and the MSBA board must vote. This is the gate: a no, or a conditioned yes, reopens the size question.
  • Sept. 23, 2026 — Ward 4 Neighborhood Connect, Healey School cafeteria, 5 Meacham St., 6 to 8 p.m., the first of the renamed City Hall Community Meetings in a "science-fair" table format; the project team and architects present there and at the Ward 3, 5 and 6 sessions, with a 3D neighborhood model expected (City of Somerville Construction News, September). Ward 7's is Oct. 1 at West Somerville Neighborhood School (Councilor Emily Hardt newsletter, Sept. 10).
  • Sept. 28, 2026 — New School Building Committee meets, 4:30 to 6 p.m.
  • Fall 2026 — Somerville Public Schools has said it will share a timeline for reviewing catchment areas and assignment policy — the review the opposition says should have come first.
  • About February 2027 — Geothermal go/no-go decision after more borings.
  • Feb. 24, 2027 — Schematic design submission to the MSBA; MSBA approval scheduled for April 28, 2027.
  • Second half of 2027 — Citywide debt-exclusion vote on the city's share. The city's timeline says November 2027; the August 3 schedule slide shows June.
  • Jan. 2029 – Dec. 2031 — Construction, with completion anticipated in late 2031. The Brown stays open at 201 Willow Ave. through at least the 2031/32 school year.