Breaking Ground: $100 Million Maloney Renovation Officially Underway

Stormy skies cleared just before 4 p.m. and the sun began to shine down on Meriden just as city officials, school staff and state legislators came together to celebrate the groundbreaking at Maloney High School.

It was a good sign to say the least, School Superintendent Mark Benigni said, as the city embarks on a $107.5 million construction project that will serve to provide the facilities and infrastructure needed to help provide the best education possible to the students of Meriden.

The groundbreaking ceremony marked the official start of the project, one that will lead to a renovated-as-new facility at Maloney that will measure approximately 260,000 square feet and include a fully renovated pool, auditorium and brand new wing.

“Today we break ground on the future, but as we do this we need to remember that it is the staff in the hallways and in the classrooms that will make the biggest difference for our students,” Benigni said.

Benigni said the key to the project is that students will not have to be displaced or working out of trailers. Instead they will remain in the classrooms as the city conducts the phased project over four years. If all goes according to plan, he said, the district will be able to celebrate a ribbon cutting in 2017 when the project is complete.

Mark Hughes, president of the Meriden Board of Education, said without the support of state legislators and a team of school and local officials, however, the groundbreaking would not be possible.

“There was a lot of talk about whether to have one high school or two high schools, but academically we knew this was the right direction to go in,” Hughes said. “We had to struggle with the concept of whether to cut the size of the auditoriums or to eliminate the pools, but a team approach allowed us to address this and do what was best for the community.”

Mayor Michael Rohde praised the efforts of school staff, building committee members and legislators that worked to not only secure state funding, but actually increase the reimbursement rate to help provide lower costs to Meriden taxpayers. The state is reimbursing the town for 77.14 percent.

He said if not for this effort, the city may have had to go back to the drawing board.

“The state wanted to cut the plan by thousands of feet, but it would have left us something we could not be proud of,” Mayor Michael Rohde said. “This project we begin today is a true team effort and so many hands went into addressing issues and making this possible.”

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