High-Profile

Fall River, MA — Suffolk has completed the new Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School, joining the Greater Fall River Vocational School District, state and local officials, educators and community members for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The facility will serve more than 1,500 students across greater Fall River, Westport, Somerset and Swansea. The 400,000sf school was delivered on time and on budget.

by Molly Canfield With school construction costs continuing to rise, communities across the country face increasingly difficult decisions about how to invest in educational facilities. Securing voter approval requires more than a well-designed building and a realistic budget. It requires a strategic public engagement effort that builds understanding, trust, and consensus among stakeholders.

by Nancy Bianchi A school building has to work hard. It welcomes hundreds, sometimes thousands, of students and educators each day. It needs to support focused learning, collaboration, movement, safety, accessibility, and community use. It must also withstand years of heavy use while remaining comfortable, efficient, and easy to maintain. Those demands make educational construction especially complex.

With decades of experience building schools across Massachusetts, Fontaine Bros. has seen K-12 construction evolve alongside changing educational priorities, building systems and community needs. High-Profile publisher Anastasia Barnes recently interviewed Dave Fontaine Jr. of Fontaine Bros.

Holliston, MA — Wayne J. Griffin Electric provided complimentary ice cream this summer to its own employees and to the crew members of project partners across hundreds of jobsites in its five regions. The company said the gesture was intended to recognize the work that goes on behind the scenes to bring jobs to completion, and to give crews a moment to pause with colleagues on site. Griffin Electric has worked as an electrical subcontractor in New England and the Southeast since 1978.

by Dan Ollila When you walk into Curry Hicks Cage at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, you’re walking into nearly a century of athletic history. Built in the 1930s as an indoor exercise facility, it later became the legendary home of Minutemen basketball, the place generations of fans knew simply as The Cage and the “House That Dr. J Built.” For those of us charged with helping shape its next chapter, that history wasn’t an obstacle to modernization.

by Carson Collier Renovating or expanding an occupied school demands a fundamentally different approach than constructing a standalone building elsewhere on the site. In occupied-facility work, construction occurs within tight adjacencies, sometimes directly attached to active classrooms, requiring heightened attention to safety, circulation, acoustics, and emergency access. The margin for error is small, and planning must be anticipatory, conservative, and collaborative.

Long-tenured team delivers renovated and expanded Newton school ahead of the 2026-27 school year. Newton, MA – M. O’Connor Contracting, Inc. (MOCC) has completed the renovation and expansion of Horace Mann Elementary School, which will welcome students for the 2026-27 school year as the company celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Boston, MA — Kaplan Construction, a WBE general contractor, has completed renovations at Interfaith Apartments, two historic affordable housing buildings at 282 Columbus Avenue and 68 West Concord Street in Boston’s South End. The work modernized the occupied residential buildings through energy-efficiency upgrades and exterior restoration.

New Haven, CT — Petra Construction provided preconstruction and construction management services for the renovation and expansion of a historic academic building in New Haven’s Hillhouse Avenue Historic District. Built in the 1860s, the three-story Italianate structure was transformed into a modern, accessible academic facility. Christopher Williams Architects served as architect. The 11,250sf main building underwent a full renovation, including the removal of 2,650sf and the addition of 8,500sf.