PITTSFIELD — Before the School Committee began publicly discussing whether Morningside Community School should close this year, the city’s finance director had already started looking into whether the building could be used for a new police station.

A March 2 invoice, obtained by The Eagle through a public records request, shows that a Pittsfield architecture firm billed the city about $938 for preliminary plans exploring the possibility of placing a police station at the former school building at 100 Burbank St.

The invoice is directed to the city's director of building maintenance, Brian Filiault. Filiault could not be reached Monday at his office for comment.

Matthew Kerwood, the city’s finance director, said he made the independent decision to request the plans in February.

“There have been discussions around the future of Morningside for a long time,” he said. “This is not a new conversation internally.”

“I feel like I was doing my job as the finance director, looking at how we can best reuse … buildings that can potentially become vacant in the future,” he added.

Kerwood said internal conversations among city officials about the uncertain future of Morningside, as well as the city’s need for an upgraded police station, informed his decision.

“We all know that the city has a need in terms of an upgraded police facility,” he said. “It is, in my opinion, my job to make sure we're best utilizing our city assets to our benefit.”

Nine days after the invoice date, School Committee member Sarah Muil raised the possibility of closing Morningside Community School at the committee's March 11 meeting. The committee voted on April 15 to close the school, which held its last day of classes on June 26.

Kerwood said his decision to seek out an early assessment of the building’s potential to house police headquarters had no bearing on the School Committee’s vote to close Morningside.

“My action had absolutely no influence — and I want to stress that — on any decision that was made publicly,” Kerwood said. “[The City Council and School Committee] weren't privy to the plans.”

Asked if the future use of Morningside Community School played a part in deciding to close the school at the end of the just-completed school year, Superintendent Latifah Phillips said it did not.

“That was not taken into account at all in my decision making,” she said.

Phillips noted that the first budget her team presented to the School Committee proposed investing substantial resources in Morningside and Conte Community School, two of the district’s then-seven turnaround schools, according to state accountability ratings.

“I think that's for me where the question started to rise around, ‘Could this money be used to better serve our Morningside students, where we actually have an alternative,’ and so that's where the question [of closing Morningside] came up,” she said.

“I really felt strongly, and I still do feel strongly, that the open concept building was not going to provide the best for the students,” Phillips said. “And I say that knowing that we have Conte, that we have got to deliver on the absolute best that we can, and we're going to do the best that we can. But I don't know that I could argue that even doing the best we can wouldn't be even better if they had walls.”

Phillips said Mayor Peter Marchetti did not ask her about closing Morningside.

“I knew that I had heard, like everyone else, that the police station might be looking for a home,” she added. “But for me, I have never had a conversation about that being a part of any decision making for Morningside.”

Kerwood described the commissioned work as a “rudimentary floor plan” that examined whether the Morningside campus would provide enough space for a police headquarters while keeping the existing gym and cafeteria intact.

A more intensive feasibility study would need to be done to determine what moving the police station to the former Morningside building would take in practice, he said, factoring in the needs of a modern police force and physical considerations like the building’s HVAC system.

Marchetti said he learned of Kerwood’s decision after the plans were completed and had no role in authorizing it.

“I wish I was part of the process, but I understand the reasoning of why it was done,” he said.

Marchetti confirmed that discussions about the future of Morningside and the possibility of converting it to a police station had been discussed privately among city officials since at least 2024 when he became mayor. He said the idea had not been made public earlier because it remained a rough concept, and there was not yet enough information to begin a productive community conversation.

“I don’t believe trying to get a very preliminary plan to see if it's even feasible is preventing people from being part of the conversation,” he said.

“Other than this back-of-the-napkin, preliminary concept, we haven't done anything,” he added.

The city has engaged Barry Architects LLC, the firm listed on the invoice, for a variety of projects in the past.

John Barry, president of Barry Architects, declined to comment after a city purchasing agent advised him over the phone not to speak to The Eagle.

Cameron Cunningham, a city councilor, announced on June 23 that he planned to submit a petition to the council requesting an in-depth study of what it would take to convert Morningside into a police headquarters and community resource center. As of July 14, the petition had been referred to Marchetti.

Cunningham said Monday he had not been aware that any plans had already been commissioned.

“Now hearing that we have this, I would hope that that process is moving along,” Cunningham said.