Construction to Begin on New Town Elementary School

After reaching a deal with a contractor, the Town of Amherst has announced that the long-awaited construction of the new Fort River Elementary School is on track to begin by the end of January.

The construction contract to build the new school was signed on Dec. 30 with CTA Construction Managers LLC, the selected contractor and low bidder. While the town’s press release stated that construction was expected to begin by the week of Jan. 13, officials revealed in a town Elementary School Building Committee meeting on Jan. 17 that construction would begin closer to the end of the month.

The new building will be constructed on the site of the existing Fort River school and will replace both the current school and Wildwood Elementary School. The school is set to open in the fall of 2026 and will serve up to 575 K-fifth grade students.

Margo Pedersen ’25, a former intern for the Amherst Regional School District, is currently writing a senior thesis on family engagement with the Amherst public school system. She expressed excitement about the new building.

“The Amherst schools are relatively old and out-of-date, and they can be and should be offering high-quality education,” Pedersen said. “I think this school is part of that and will definitely be a net positive for the community.”

Pedersen cited the “open-classroom” structure of the current Fort River and Wildwood classrooms as an example of how the schools’ design hinders local children’s learning experience.

“They have open-design classrooms, where it’s just one room with screen-dividers in the middle of the classrooms to split people up,” Pedersen said. “It’s really bad for learning because it’s just really loud and kids can’t focus. This was very state of the art in the ’70s when the schools were built … but now we know that’s not really great for kids.”

Another important component of the combined new school, Pedersen said, was the opportunity to expand the Amherst Public Schools Caminantes dual language program, which supports students to become bilingual in both English and Spanish. The program is currently housed only at Fort River, but the school district “wants to continue to make sure that that’s an important part of the district, and so part of the reasoning for the new school is to have more space for that program to continue and hopefully expand,” Pedersen said.

The town of Amherst stated that, in addition to its pedagogical benefits, “the project aims to enhance community amenities by restoring playing fields, providing basketball courts, developing trails, rain gardens, and more, ensuring recreational opportunities for residents of all ages.”

The new school will also be a net-zero energy building, using ground source heat pumps and photovoltaic panels to provide its energy needs.

The renovation bidding process for the new school was not always smooth sailing. Multiple bidding protests were aired to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Fair Labor Division in early October last year, delaying the process for months. Two of the general contractors that bid on the project, along with two construction industry organizations, alleged that CTA was ineligible for the award.

After a public hearing and investigative process by the Fair Labor Division, the bid protests were denied by the attorney general’s office on Dec. 4, clearing the way for a contract to be signed with CTA.

Despite the delays to construction caused by the bid protests, Amherst Special Capital Projects Manager Robert Peirent asserted in the latest Elementary School Building Committee meeting that the town still expects the new school to be occupiable by the fall of 2026, but might require some “internal schedules to be adjusted.”

“Though no fault of the town and of no fault of CTA, we’ve lost several key months at the beginning of the schedule,” Peirent said. “It is going to be necessary to accelerate some of the work activities during the course of construction and as a result of that there are some additional costs that CTA will be incurring to work overtime.”