West Bridgewater School Committee Approves Construction Manager at Risk for New Elementary School

WEST BRIDGEWATER — September 9, 2025 — West Bridgewater School Committee votes for construction manager at risk on new Rosedale Elementary School. The committee voted by majority Tuesday to select the construction manager at risk delivery method over the traditional general contractor approach for the consolidated Rosedale Elementary School project, accepting an estimated net premium of $5.5 million — based on a projected $6.7 million construction manager premium offset by roughly $200,000 per month in general conditions savings over a six-month schedule advantage. The owner's project manager team argued the constrained, wetlands-adjacent site, phased construction alongside an occupied school, and the risk of a low-bid contractor arriving with a pre-built change order list all favored the more expensive but more controlled approach. Under the construction manager at risk timeline, students would move into phase one of the new building before the 2028-2029 school year and demolition of the existing Rosedale building would proceed over the summer of 2028; under a general contractor model, students would not move in until approximately February 2029. The committee also received a traffic analysis update disclosing that the school's driveway exit degrades from a level-of-service C to F at full enrollment even with staggered starts and two exit lanes — a data point a committee member said should have been highlighted at the prior meeting. The schematic design document set was sent to the project estimator the same evening, with a cost estimate review set for October 21 and a vote to submit the schematic design to the Massachusetts School Building Authority targeted for the same date, ahead of an October 23 MSBA deadline.