Residents Raise Concerns over Project Costs at Latest Pollard Community Meeting

July 6, 2026
• Nearly a week after the design for the new Pollard Middle School was submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority, Needham residents raised questions about the project’s cost and features at a June 30 community meeting.

The public meeting, the 35th since January, updated residents on the project’s status and provided an opportunity for questions.

With the plan submitted — a milestone in securing a potential 20-25% reimbursement from the MSBA — Superintendent Dan Gutekanst made it clear that the input from community meetings going forward would not have a major effect on the building’s design.

“Any meeting where you have people come together on a hot summer night, you’re going to get feedback,” Gutekanst said. He emphasized that said feedback is still important and that officials will make accomodations where possible. “There are some set parameters, in that I don’t want to say the ship has sailed, but we’ve sent the memo to the MSBA.”

The presentation highlighted the new building’s geothermal heating system, construction timeline and latest total cost estimate of $325.4 million. Pollard currently houses 7th and 8th graders, though the renovated space will also hold 6th graders.

The meeting – the first of three scheduled this summer – was held in Pollard’s auditorium, which itself has emerged as a central feature in the new design. The new auditorium, which would seat 750 and be almost 4,000 square feet larger than the current space, wasn’t mentioned in the introduction. Still, it was the focus of a plurality of the attendees’ questions.

Needham resident Phil Murray said he wanted to know if a cafetorium – a combined cafeteria and auditorium – had been considered, since the MSBA would generally reimburse those construction costs, but not that of a full-scale traditional auditorium.

School Committee Chair Alisa Skatrud said a cafetorium was considered but “very rapidly crossed off the list” because school leaders feel it would not fulfill the educational goals of the existing program. Skatrud also noted that Needham is the only community in the surrounding area without a theater space larger than 550 seats, which is roughly the capacity of Newman Elementary School’s auditorium.

Abutters to the property expressed concern about the new auditorium’s impacts on traffic during performance nights.

“We’re used to some of the noise,” said Sandy Hughes, who identified as an abutter. “But to all of a sudden have it that every Friday and Saturday we’re going to be having events because the community needs an auditorium — have we looked at renovating Newman?”

Pollard Principal Tamitha Bibbo said the Pollard auditorium currently hosts more than 200 events annually.

The new auditorium space would likely also be used for high school and community-wide events. However, with the new building’s 260-spot parking lot, Skatrud said she anticipated a decrease in overflow parking relative to the present.

Other residents’ concerns centered on the overall cost of the project — down from a previous estimate of $336 million— including the cost effectiveness of features like the planned geothermal heating and cooling system.

“Should we build a project this large, that’s going to exceed our debt limits,” Needham resident Ken Buckley said. “It feels to me that going for the most expensive option wasn’t good stewardship.”

Skatrud said the School Building Committee’s decision to completely rebuild Pollard for 6th through 8th graders was the least expensive option in the long term. She emphasized the project’s estimated tax impact on the average single-family home, which peaks at a $2,366 increase in 2034, was outdated and higher than expected.

However, Skatrud did not entirely downplay the effects of the project on low-income Needham residents, though she said officials are mindful of them.

“Those are the people that are really going to be hurt by this,” Skatrud said.

In anticipation of that tax burden, Skatrud said she previously approached the Select Board to discuss ways to get the town’s tax relief programs “beefed up,” she said.

In late August, the schematic design will either be approved or denied by the MSBA, which will decide how much, if any, of the project’s cost gets reimbursed. That, in turn, will dictate how much the town itself will pay. With the project at $325.4 million, an MSBA reimbursement could total between $65 to $80 million, school officials said.

On Nov. 3, Needham voters will make the decision on whether to allow a debt exclusion override, increasing property taxes, to fund the Pollard project. In the event that the override does not pass, Gutekanst said the SBC would have to focus on repairing the existing Pollard building, which would cost an estimated $167 million and would not be eligible for MSBA reimbursement.

“That means having more community meetings about simply a repair of a building that’s not going to get you the educational facility you need for generations to come,” Gutekanst said.

The next Pollard community meeting is scheduled for July 22 at 6 p.m. in the Pollard auditorium and via Zoom, followed by another on Aug. 26.

Benjamin Fogler is a rising sophomore at Northwestern University, where he is studying journalism. Fogler, who graduated from Needham High School, also writes for The Daily Northwestern.