Wonderland Reimagined
Revere High School Construction a Milestone for Annese Electrical and Eastern Massachusetts
Something remarkable is taking shape on the historic Wonderland Greyhound Park site in Revere. One of the largest public school construction projects in Massachusetts history is underway on the long-vacant site, with Annese Electrical Services powering the project.
The new Revere High School marks a milestone for the four-decade-old WBE firm, which holds an approximately $28 million electrical contract for the project. The 422,600-square-foot, state-of-the-art campus, located adjacent to Wonderland Station, will serve more than 2,450 students, and include updated science labs, collaborative learning spaces, technology-equipped classrooms and dedicated facilities for arts and athletics.
“It is a massive site,” said Annese Vice President Frank Brady, who is leading the project for the company. “It is a four-story facility with a parking garage under the entire building. It will be the largest school that we’ve completed to date”
Construction is still in its early stages, but Annese is already deep into the project, with an initial team handling MEP coordination, grounding, and other early infrastructure as foundation work progresses and structural steel begins to rise. The company’s presence will grow considerably as construction advances.
“We’re basically soup to nuts,” Brady continued. “We will be installing infrastructure for National Grid’s primary service. This includes four pad mounted transformers which will provide four separate 4000A secondary feeds to the building. Dual 750KVA generators are also going in to provide emergency power. We are providing power and lighting for the entire building and site, including a sports lighting package for multiple athletic fields. Power for EV charging stations, fire alarm, AOR, public address, and clock systems. We will also be providing pathways and provisions for multiple LV systems such as audio/visual, security, telecom, and datacom”
Annese is embedded for the duration, with substantial completion scheduled for September 2028 and occupancy planned the following month.
Annese Electrical’s ability to take on a project the size of Revere is no surprise to industry watchers in the Commonwealth. Founded by Deb and Joe Annese in 1988, the firm quickly found its niche in public-sector electrical contracting in Eastern Massachusetts. The business remains majority family-owned under the leadership of Deb and Joe’s daughter, Melanie Legge, who serves as president, director, and co-owner.
That’s a lot of titles for someone who once wanted no part of the family business.
“They always wanted me to join the business, and I said absolutely not,” Legge recalled. “Until about 22 years ago. I jumped in with two feet and haven’t looked back.”
The company’s public sector footprint under Legge’s leadership is substantial. Other projects include the Andover Water Treatment Plant, a complex electrical distribution upgrade involving new switchgear, standby power, controls, and SCADA integration. The company also completed major electrical upgrades at the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District’s Riverside Pump Station, including medium-voltage infrastructure, standby generation and monitoring and control systems.
Of all public works in their portfolio, “schools are our biggest forte,” said company treasurer and co-owner Mike Reynolds. “I can’t think of any other union contractor in the region that goes after the bigger schools that we do.”
Before the Revere construction, recent school projects include the Tewksbury Elementary School, a 139,500-square-foot ground-up school construction, and the Dennis-Yarmouth Intermediate/Middle School, where Annese installed electrical, life-safety, security, data, and A/V systems across the 185,000-square-foot facility.
Reynolds notes that the demands of school construction have evolved significantly since Annese began taking on the work, requiring contractors to manage an increasingly complex array of electrical systems and technologies. “A lot of these schools that we’re bidding are almost like small college campuses,” Reynolds said. “They have a full-size auditorium, full-size gyms. They have outdoor athletic centers. They have black box rooms to do stage productions. They’ve got woodworking shops and art shops—you name it.”
Legge and Reynolds took over day-to-day leadership of Annese 15 years ago and, together with Brady and the rest of the team, steadily built the company’s reputation and achieved steady growth. A major turning point came in 2022, when the company became signatory with IBEW Local 103 and joined NECA Boston.
“They wanted us, we wanted them,” Legge said of the relationship. “And over the past four years we’ve been able to substantially grow the business with the support of 103 and NECA.”
The numbers illustrate the change. Annese had approximately 70 employees when it became a union contractor and reached about 125 last year. After a temporary downturn, the company is again hiring two or three electricians a week and expects its workforce to return to the 125-to-135 range.
Revenue growth has been even more pronounced.
“When Mel and I took over, I think we were doing around $15 to $20 million a year,” Reynolds said. “Our current backlog is $92 million. So we’ve grown substantially over the last four years.”
Reynolds describes the company’s earlier expansion as gradual. Becoming a union contractor gave Annese the capacity to accelerate it.
“Joining the union has allowed us to bid bigger jobs because we’re able to utilize the highly trained and capable workforce they have at the ready versus putting ads in the paper and hoping for the best. They have people ready to go.”
Legge added that Local 103 and the JATC’s pipeline of trained apprentices and journeymen has also helped Annese scale its field workforce as major projects come online. “Local 103 has such a great training program that you’re pretty much guaranteed a Class A employee.”
Annese’s relationship with NECA Boston has grown alongside its partnership with Local 103. For Legge, NECA has provided something different but equally important: a network of contractors and industry professionals who understand the challenges of running and growing an electrical construction business.
Legge joined the NECA Boston Board of Directors in 2023 and also serves on the JATC board. Those roles have brought Annese more deeply into the union electrical contracting community. “The relationships I’ve made with other union contractors have definitely spawned our growth,” Legge said. “If I weren’t on the board, I would have still made some connections with NECA, but they wouldn’t be as strong as they are, which has helped us tremendously.”
Legge added that the benefits of the NECA partnership have reached beyond the executive level. “NECA has helped us with not only the network, but also educating our office staff, which we’ve never done before, opening our eyes to different technologies and training.”
Annese, in turn, brings decades of public-sector experience to NECA Boston and, through Legge’s board service, the perspective of a successful WBE contractor with deep roots in a highly competitive segment of the Massachusetts construction market.
As the company’s capacity has increased, its direction has broadened. Legge envisions building on its growing institutional portfolio and pursuing more private-sector opportunities. Annese has recently expanded its institutional portfolio with projects at MIT, Harvard, and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Wherever opportunities present themselves, the Annese work philosophy and core principles will remain the same. The approach, Reynolds said, is to grow selectively rather than simply chase volume.
“The attitude is work as hard as you can, because the better we can do on the job, the more aggressive we can go on that next bid,” Reynolds said. “Show us what you can do so we can keep work coming for years to come. That’s kind of the motto here.”