As students head back to school, city and state officials gathered in the South End of New Bedford on Wednesday for the ground breaking of a building that will replace for the John Hannigan Elementary School which was torn down after the school's roof collapsed in 2006.

Speaking at the ceremony Mayor Jon Mitchell said the new school is being built at a time when new bedford is making major improvements to its education system and that the new state of the art building will help them achieve those goals.

"This is a school that will house some 400 kids in the South End and give them a first rate space to learn," said Mitchell "and with all the reform in our school district, with our effort to expand learning time, to deliver first rate educational services to our children, this is the kind of facility that will support it all."

The Massachusetts School Building Authority will pay roughly $22 million towards the roughly $36 million cost of building the school.

While touting all the state of the art features the new building will have, the Authority's Executive Director, Jack McCarthy, referenced the students who likley attend the school when it opens and said he hopes one feature remains unchanged.

"One thing I hope you keep, the Hurricane name as the mascot," said McCarthy "because the hurricane is a powerful force of nature and so I'm looking at some powerful forces of nature sitting here in the front two rows so I think it would be good if you kept that."

Ward 6 City Councillor Joseph Lopes said that while the school that while the school will benefit the students who attend classes it will also greatly benefit the surrounding neighborhood.

"For almost a decade the neighbors were looking at a building that was falling apart," said Lopes "the City Council, the Mayor's Office, the School Committee, we all collectively worked together and knew the best thing to do was to bring back a neighborhood school and that's what we're doing."

The new school is scheduled to open in September 2017.

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