AI-generated transcript of Community Development Board 05-16-22

[Andre Leroux]: All right, good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Medford Community Development Board meeting of May 16th, 2022. My name is Andre LeRoux. I'm the chair of the board. Let's see. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this hearing of the Medford Community Development Board will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by accessing the meeting link contained herein. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, and public participation in any public hearing during the meeting shall be by remote means only. To participate remotely outside of the virtual platform, questions and comments may be submitted via email to OCD at medford-ma.gov or via phone to 781-393-2480. That's OCD at medford-ma.gov or 781-393-2480. calling the meeting to order. Let's take a roll call of the members present and I just want to remind everybody who does speak to introduce themselves and state their address when we get to the agenda items. Just say present member when I call your name Christy Dowd. Present class and dress and present. Vice Chair Jackie Furtado. Deanna Peabody present. David Blumberg present. I'm present as well so let's move recording stop recording in progress. Do we have the main item on the agenda tonight is site plan review recommendations to the Zoning Board of Appeals for 4054 Mystic Valley Parkway rise together development. Amanda, would you like to say a few words or should we move right into the proponent giving their presentation?

[Amanda Centrella]: I will hand it off to the proponent team. Quinn, and actually, so I have Quinlan, is there anyone else that, and if you could just raise your hand, that you want me to give sharing permissions to?

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yes, so it'll be, Q3 is gonna be running the presentation here, so I know Brian O'Connor's on here, I'm not sure if it's him or someone else running the presentation though.

[SPEAKER_09]: This is Brian, I'll be running it, Quinlan, unless there's a problem.

[Amanda Centrella]: So you should be able to share now.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, great.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: And Amanda, feel free to let me know if I should start now.

[Unidentified]: Go for it. Yeah.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Well, good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. Thank you so much for your time this evening. My name is Clement Locke. I'm a project manager at Rise Together at 12 Erickson Street in Dorchester, Mass, 02122. And we are very excited to present to you tonight this proposed life science project at 4054 Mystic Valley Parkway. And before we dive in, I just really quickly wanted to thank city departments who have taken the time to weigh in on this project. We know a lot of time and effort goes into these reviews and we really do appreciate everything that's been done to date and look forward to continuing to make this project the best that it can be. And here you'll see that our project team comprised of many teams that have experienced both in Medford and in the life science industry. We have members available from each team here tonight to make sure we can answer any questions or comments that come up at the end of the presentation. And you'll be hearing from some of them as well in just a moment. and we'll also make sure that this presentation is made available to the board for their review at the end of the presentation. Next slide, please. On the ownership and development side, the project team and RISE have partnered with the Matarazzo family in Medford to bring this project to life. The family is also very excited to continue working with the city and the community on creating a project that truly benefits the area and incorporates important city goals and initiatives. Next slide. And for those who aren't familiar with the site, it's located right along Mystic Valley Parkway, Route 16 in the red area shown, bordered by the parkway and Tobrit McDonald State Park to the south and radio towers occupying the wetlands area to the north. To the bottom right, you can see Wellington Orange Line Station on the T on the map. And that's right across Wellington Circle. And to the left, you'll see Meadowland Plaza, as well as the intersection at Locust Street. Next slide. So about a year ago, we started analyzing some of the history of the site, as well as what's happening on the site today. The site was primarily marshlands through the 1930s until Ralph's Potato Factory and Laboratory opened in the 1940s. And then in 1993, Ratutu came in and has been there ever since. The surrounding area has a similar history, having mainly served commercial, industrial, and retail uses since the 1940s, as you can see below. Next slide, please. and today the area is in the early stages of multiple changes. The Wellington Circle study continues to progress forward, important transportation improvements in the area. McDonald State Park is seeing increased usage due to efforts by local nonprofits such as Mystic River Watershed Association, and a comprehensive plan is being put forth by the city that will set forth guidelines on how to address key areas such as economic development, climate resiliency, and mobility. Most of these goals align with our own and are outlined with an important feedback we received from the city departments as well. We started to incorporate benefits into this project, such as improved public realm and retail at the front edge of the site and incorporating community space at the ground level to be used. We're also studying new benefits suggested by these departments, including a new pedestrian crossing at 4054 Mystic Valley Parkway that will improve future connections from the project site to the Tolbert McDonald State Park. Next slide, please. And with that in mind, it was clear that life science at this location could help us achieve all these goals. Not only could we protect the historic use of the area as industrial and commercial, We could use the development as a catalyst for economic growth, achieve climate resiliency and mobility goals, and utilize our project team and future tenants to create new connections and opportunities for the city of Medford. With this in mind, our project team began to move forward with designing a truly state of the art building that would indeed meet these goals. Next slide, please. And we started with the existing conditions. Today, as noted, the project sits at 4054 Mystic Valley Parkway and is Bertucci's. You can see the building Bertucci's in the middle of the lot there in the gray square, as well as pictures of the building on the side. And around the building is mostly surface parking that is used today for the restaurants. To the east, you'll have the communications building that services the radio towers. To the north, you'll have the wetland site that is where the radio towers sit. To the west, you have what's currently a trial court. And to the south, you have Mystic Valley Parkway. And just across from Mystic Valley Parkway is the state park. And at this point, I'd like to hand it over to our civil engineer team at BHB to continue with the presentation.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, thanks, Quinn. Can you guys hear me all right? Yep. All right, great. My name is Tim Smith, I'm with VHB. I'm just going to be talking real quick about the proposed development here. I just wanted to highlight a few things. The existing site, the Bertucci's, it's mainly an impervious site. What you're going to see here, we've tried to maximize green space where we can, but it's also going to be mainly impervious. Another item we wanted to point out, the drive aisle coming off of Mystic Valley Parkway. It's a one-way drive aisle. 20 feet wide. It's designed to accommodate both all the fire apparatus vehicles that could be coming to the site as well as the delivery trucks. On the east side, we have our loading dock, the northwest side is the garage access. We also wanted to note on this slide that, excuse me, that There is a perimeter fence and retaining wall that will that will go around the perimeter of the site. Next slide. And focusing really mainly for this slide on the on the right the drainage, the grading drainage and utilities. The site was graded to stay as high as possible to account for future flooding conditions. basically the site plateaus. The existing conditions drain to the rear of the site, and we have tried to accommodate that as well in our design. I would like to point out that due to the structure below. There are a few places where we will be piping stormwater through the building to account for that and to mimic the existing drainage patterns. Utility wise water sewer and gas. They will all tie into the existing mains that run along the mystic Valley Parkway right of way. and there is an existing electric on site that we'll be tying into. And if there are any other questions, we wanted to be brief with these slides. If there are any other questions, we'll be available at the end. And Mike Rittenmeyer with MDLA is going to take over from here. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_10]: Thanks, Tim. Hi everyone, my name is Mike Rattenmayer, I'm a landscape architect at MDLA. There's two slides I'm going to review with you. The first one here are some precedent images. primarily for the entry plaza that we're proposing. This is meant to give you a character of the materials, the planting types that we'll be proposing for this project. So on the left side, you can see different types of grasses, large open plaza spaces, different opportunities for seating. And we think with this building use, creating outdoor space, different options for seating and gathering will work well, which is some of the images on the right. Next slide, please, Brian. So on the left is our overall site plan, similar, you know, the same view that Tim just walked you through. And on the right is an enlargement of the entry plaza. On the left side, overall, starting at Mystic Valley Parkway, on the south side of the screen, or the lower side of the screen here, we are keeping the existing street trees that are along the parkway, as well as proposing a new new street tree towards the western curb cut to the left where the cursor is. Working right into the site, there's going to be a new sidewalk, a generous landscape buffer with new shade trees, massing of shrubs and perennials, as well as a rain garden to help with green infrastructure and stormwater management. The dark gray tone, I guess we could refer to the enlargement on the right, I apologize. As a this large sweeping seat wall that kind of defines the edge of the plaza with the amount of, you know, the traffic on mystic Valley Parkway we'd like to try and create a little bit of a quieter space, but then also find ways to invite you know with this being a public plaza invite you know visitors and the public into this plaza. You can see the different types of cafe tables sort of towards the center of the plaza that will be spill out from that use. And then again, different options throughout the plaza for seating, gathering, different uses of pavers to help delineate circulation to the main entry. And then moving back to the left and the overall site plan, as Tim mentioned, there is a screen fence going around wood screen fence going on the property line towards the rear. And then we did try and maximize green space and planting where we could along the backside of the building, primarily using native trees, shrubs, and perennials where possible. Again, if anyone has any questions towards the end of this presentation, happy to discuss. I think with that, I'll turn it back to Brian.

[SPEAKER_09]: Great. Thank you, Mike. Brian O'Connor from Cube 3. I also have with me this evening Steven Prestonjohn from my office, and he'll be participating in any questions and answers as well. What we'd like to do is just walk you through the building fairly quickly. Again, we're going to keep it high level. This first slide really takes the site and identifies the property line with the inner circle, the vertuces in the center of the site. And then there's a dotted line 100 feet away indicating overlap and adjacency to our neighbors. On the north of the site, or plan north right now, on number one, we have the district court at 4040 Mystic Valley Parkway. We are within 100 feet of the edge of that building. And then on the bottom of the page, we have two and three. Two is a communication facility that Quinlan had mentioned earlier. And then three is Century Ford on the bottom edge. So these are all fairly low, structures that are really not doing a particularly good job of defining a public edge or creating a walkable path along Mystic Valley Parkway. And one of the real focal points of this project from the beginning has been to create a building that not only really supports, as Quinlan had mentioned, the development program here that will enrich the community, but also really make sure that we're providing an active, usable, and meaningful public realm edge along Mystic Valley Parkway. As far as traffic goes, there's a transportation impact study that's currently under review. We just wanted to highlight that. The team has already responded to initial comments. We do anticipate that the project will have limited impact on area roadways with approximately 239 net new vehicle trips during the morning peak hour, 112 during the evening peak hour, The graphic on the right indicates our property in yellow and the intersections and key traffic areas that were studied. We are providing, and I'll get into a little more detail on this in a moment, approximately 422 parking spaces on site to support the demand from the new building. We do have traffic engineers as well that are available for questions after. As far as site circulation, this is, again, the same diagram, Mystic Valley Parkway on the left. North is off to the right. Plan North above us is West. What we're trying to do here is just illustrate how the building sits on the site. You heard Mike talk a bit about the plaza and the landscaped edge. We've spent quite a bit of time thinking about how people, vehicles, bicycles, loading, service, all utilize the site. There's a one-way loop that enters on the bottom on the east side, runs around the building, and exits along the top of the page. This loop does maintain and narrow existing curb cuts on the site. Simplification of this pattern really reinforces a clean traffic flow, minimizes congestion and overlap. As you come into the site, along the east road on the bottom. You have a bike storage area for the users of the building in the sort of reddish color right here. So you would have a clean path off the main Mystic Valley Parkway right in there. You have a loading area immediately following so trucks could come in and back into a covered protected off the off the road sort of loading and service as you continue around the back of the building. This is your access point for vehicles going to the parking levels below the building for people using. And then, as I mentioned, sort of a right turnout onto Mystic Valley Parkway. Loading dock and trash room are fully enclosed. Bike parking is internal. And one of the things I'd like to point out here, we'll talk a little bit more later, but The building is really designed around this idea of a public plaza on Mystic Valley. And one of the things that we did that I think is very deliberate and quite important is pulled this sort of retail cafe piece out to really create direct frontage to the street and pulled the building lobby back a little bit away from the street to allow this plaza to exist and create better visibility for the retail and potential cafe at that front leading edge. Overall, from a development standpoint, a lot of data on here. I'm not going to go through it in brutal detail at the high level. We have a gross building area above grade of a little over 300,000 square feet, a gross floor area of a little under 260,000 square feet. The difference between those is removing building support, shafts, and parking. So that's the gross available floor area. And as I had mentioned, we have 422 parking spaces in three levels that are all subgrade. so that the parking is not visible from the public realm and accommodates what we believe to be an appropriate amount of spaces for the building use. I'm going to take you through the floor plans fairly quickly. I wanted to start with this section just to make sure everyone understood how this building comes together. At the ground floor level right here, we have Mystic Valley Parkway on the left-hand side, the wetlands over here and back of house services to the right. we have three floors of parking below grade. So you can see these three levels going down into the ground, and then the building is eight floors moving up. And then above that eighth floor, we have a mechanical penthouse that's approximately 40 feet in height, which is really critical for these lab uses. So we're gonna start with this ground floor, then we're gonna go down, and then we're gonna go up. I'm trying to orient this thing so it really makes sense. So again, ground floor plan circulation path around the edge, We talked a lot about what's in here already. I think this is really just a graphic to kind of reinforce what we've been talking about. It was a very deliberate move to include loading service functions deep within the building, which really optimizes their ability to serve the building and screens them from public view. Loading dock is canted backwards at an angle so that the bike room and the bike storage helps to hide and screen that from Mystic Valley. and then really front load the entire site with very public, transparent, and visible functionality so that we are supporting in the most generous way possible the sort of small amount of frontage that we do have. What we hope we're doing is really setting the tone for future development along this corridor. All of the back of house functions are back here in the darker gray on the right hand side of the image. And as I had mentioned, the ramp down in this location to parking levels below. So we're going to go below right now Not going to spend a ton of time on these. These are a little bit more technical drawings. This is the third level below grade. So if you go all the way down below the building, the cores from the lab building come all the way down here. mechanical spaces in the corners. We have about 153 spaces on this level, 153 spaces on the second floor, and then the first floor under that ground level we had talked about has another 113 spaces. So there's sort of a little bit of a detailed calculation in the lower right about all the different types of spaces, including accessible and a few surface spaces for a total onsite of 422 parking. As we go up in the building, we notice very quickly that the typical floor plan is quite different than the parking levels that are below grade. We spent a lot of time not only thinking about the public realm, but about how to create a building envelope here that feels engaging from different sides, and it feels like it's not just a big block. And so you'll notice the sort of sawtooth configuration along the bottom. That's really facing east. So as you're driving down Mystic Valley Parkway towards Route 93, You get this sort of sense of layers to the building and you don't have just an uninterrupted wall. They do wrap around the backside. So you'll again see those corners from further away and the large notch on the front of the building really reinforcing this public plaza that is effectively the centerpiece of this project. We have two quick typical optional floor layouts we wanted to share just so everyone could understand how this building works. In gray are these cores that came down into the garage coming up here. elevator, stair tower, service areas. At the highest level, everything that's kind of greenish is really lab, whether it's support space for the lab, specialty lab areas, or the lighter green is sort of the open lab space. And everything that's in blue or light blue are really office functionality. So there's office plan, open plan office, there's some enclosed offices. And then up on the front left hand side of this image here, we have break areas at each level that really will create very glassy, transparent, and connected internal spaces that overlook onto the plaza, as well as conference rooms in purple. This is another layout. This one's sort of a little bit different where the lab is really bifurcated to the right-hand side of the building. Office functionality lays out towards the front. I think there's still a number of configurations we're contemplating here. I think the idea is we've developed a building structure and a building footprint that really is quite flexible and will allow us to really serve a wide range of lab needs. As we go up a little further, this is a quick plan outline of the mechanical penthouse floor that I had mentioned earlier. One important note here is the building outline in red is the volume of the building we've been talking about below. You can see the mechanical penthouse has its own very unique structure and form in some areas on the bottom, sort of echoing the sawtooth. and then on other areas sort of creating slightly different geometries. This is set back from the edge of the building below, again, to really make sure that we're breaking down the scale and mass of this as much as possible. Here's a quick image. We're sort of looking, Mystic Valley Parkway, we're looking sort of, I guess, in the westerly direction here. So down in the lower areas, you see this sort of very generous plaza that we're creating out in the front. This would be the retail cafe location here coming out and having a more direct engagement with the street. These are the break areas over here, looking down over that plaza. Main entry to the building for users and occupiers would be kind of in this area. And then you have that buffer and sort of the continuation of the green tree zone along the edge of the street. This is the road that exits out onto Mystic Valley, and this is sort of the entry road over here. The building design itself is quite glassy and quite transparent. One of the things that you can see here is sort of, we've taken this 40 foot high penthouse volume and really broken that down into two separate layers, where the first layer, which is about 15 feet, really has direct engagement with the building so that the glassy areas kind of feel like they're engaged in that. And it has the resulting impact of really reducing the feel of the penthouse up above. From a building material standpoint, We have sort of a mix of glass, transparent building edges, wrapping corners, projecting with gentle overhangs that you see here on the east side. And we're looking at a mix of sort of a number of different lighter to darker smooth gray metal panels. We have a white metal panel that appears in sort of all the glassy building facades where we have composite windows in some storefront. And then we have in this lighter gray area here coming down, and intersecting with the base of the building, we're proposing a more textured metal panel to pick up a little more shadow and a little bit more of a connection at that pedestrian scale. And these are just a quick series of elevations. This is facing the Mystic Valley Parkway edge. And you can see the glass down here and then the rest of the glass up here and some of this metal panel coming down and really creating that strong break where we have that volume that comes out towards Mystic Valley Parkway. Oops, sorry. This is the long face on the west side. So right in this area right here is where we have that plaza, Mystic Valley Parkway is over here to the right, and that really large glass area kind of fronting directly down onto that plaza. This is the rear of the building, a little more solid here. So you would come around the backside, and if you're a vehicle that works here, you would sort of enter the right-hand edge of the building to go down below. and then the other side, this is the eastern side, so facing traffic on Mystic Valley Parkway. And you can probably see there's quite a bit more sort of direct engagement of the building edge here as it develops. So we're creating shadow lines, we're creating these sort of sawtooth pieces that really reach down, overhang the building, create some beautiful shadow edges and really give you a sense of depth and layering to the building itself and then the penthouse above. From a shadow study standpoint, we ran a fairly standard array of shadow studies for the equinoxes, the summer solstice, and the winter solstice. This is nine, noon, and three o'clock during each of those times. We're happy to spend a lot more time on this whenever you want. I think the high level takeaway here is that really none of the buildings to the east, Century Ford, or the communication building are seeing any additional shadow impacts. We are In the early morning, we do have an impact on Mystic Valley Parkway in all three of these different conditions. That's gone in all three conditions by noon, and it's also gone in the afternoon. So we do feel like the shadow impacts of this building on Mystic Valley Parkway and that developing public realm are fairly de minimis. And then just one final quick image of the building, and then I'd like to turn it back over to Quinlan. And then we're certainly happy to answer and address any and all questions you may have.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Thanks, Brian. And with that, I won't spend too much time, but I just wanted to say again, thank you so much for the time this evening. We have our full team on deck here for any questions that anybody has here. Um, Mr. Chair, members of the board really appreciate your time and looking forward to working with the city of Medford on this project. Thank you so much.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. Thank you for the presentation. Uh, we, uh, stop the sharing right now. I know that the Office of Community Development has been doing quite a bit of work, so I would invite, not to put you on the spot, Victor, or anybody else, but I would invite you, before we get to the board member comments, if you want to say a few words.

[Victor Schrader]: Sure, thank you, Andre and the board. And thanks to the RISE team. They've been good to work with. And we're looking forward to a robust discussion tonight about this project. I think there's a nice opportunity over in the Wellington area to bring that district into modern times and really help it function better for the city of Medford, both from an economic standpoint, but also from a livability standpoint. Talking to people about Wellington, no one seems to spend a lot of time in that area, except for those few people that live over there. So it's growing. We're hoping to improve it with every project. And we think that this project does. But certainly look forward to your input. And I know that the RISE team will respond.

[Andre Leroux]: I assume you've received the comment letters from all the city department heads.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Has your team had a chance to review them?

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Apologies, I couldn't find the unmute button. Yes, we did receive the comment letters from the city departments. We have been thoroughly reviewing them. There is a lot of great information in there that we're hoping to incorporate into this project. A lot of things that we've already started to incorporate into the project as well. So again, we did receive those comment letters and we appreciate everybody following up with those.

[Andre Leroux]: Is there anything in any of those letters that you think would be problematic? Do you think that you'd be able to meet those requests?

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, nothing so far. You know, we've had our whole project team reviewing those letters and nothing problematic has come up to date. I think, you know, and working with the city departments and working with the state departments will also be reviewing this project. I think there's a lot of good benefits in those comment letters that we could start working through. A lot of them do require a little bit of studying and feasibility, but I think with the attention that this team has put together and all the thoughts from the city, I think we can get there. So nothing problematic that we've seen today.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Let me open up to questions from board members. Yes, Klaus Andresen.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: can I start by asking for a little more information about the process that this project is going through? Most specifically, I noticed that there's a number of variances being requested. What is the status of that? And if you can talk a little bit about when that will go to the ZBA. And also, can you talk a little bit about sustainability and resiliency goals for the project before I ask any questions? Thank you.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Sure. So I think the first question for the zoning purposes, I believe we have Dean Torbey on here, who is the zoning attorney on the project. So I'll turn it over to them. And we also have our permitting agency, VHB, on the project in case they want to touch on anything as well. But Michael, I think you're on if you want to touch on some of that.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_13]: Great. Thank you, Quinn. Thank you. So as far as the zoning board process, we filed an application for the variances that you've seen here tonight on April 13th. And so it's our understanding that we will get a public hearing with the ZBA after they receive recommendations from the Community Development Board. So we're in the process, we're just waiting.

[Alicia Hunt]: If I might just follow up on that, because I know members are more familiar with this. So it is scheduled at the ZBA on May 26, but there is no pressure to close this in order to make that date. The proponent has been advised, this is what they're commenting on, and I discussed with the staff, Dennis, this evening, that if this board does not issue conditions tonight, then they will just open and continue that hearing and the ZBA will not actually hear this until this board is done with the site plan review. But they did file in a timely manner such that if you were to choose to finish this evening, they could be heard on the 26th.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Great, thank you.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Can I ask that you just walk through the different variances that you're requesting?

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_13]: Sure. So we have a side yard of variants that we're looking for for five feet. One rear yard, well, rear yard variants of five feet. Lock coverage, we're looking at lock coverage of 57% versus 50%. So looking for a variance of approximately 7% in the lot coverage. Height looks like 135 feet. Variance that we'd be looking for. As far as stories, six stories we'd be looking for for relief. We're in a two and we're looking at eight stories here. And then loading bays. We are required to have five loading bays. We've determined we only need three. So we'd be looking for a variance of decreasing that by two loading bays. And that's it.

[Alicia Hunt]: Can you also speak to the sustainability things? There's stuff that's in here, but I feel that when you met with our office, you talked more about your commitment to sustainability and that type of thing that was part of Klaus's question.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, absolutely. I think we do have Stephanie Krul on here from VHB who's helping us on the environmental and permitting side of things. And we also have Jacob's engineering on here who has helped us through a few of the sustainability goals early on. So feel free to unmute yourselves if you want to speak on that. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_12]: Hi, this is Stephanie Krul from VHB. I can speak a little bit more to the climate change and mitigation side than to the sustainability side. But this project is subject to MEPA. We filed an ENF and got a certificate April 1st. We've been invited to file a single environmental impact report. And so we have been utilizing the data at the state level, the most up-to-date information about climate change impacts heat sea level rise precipitation. Really, this site is most vulnerable to flooding due to sea level rise, and that's because of its location in the vicinity of a wetland area. The project is looking to raise the first floor and to have some passive and active flood proofing measures in place in the event that there is flooding on the site, or also anticipating that the. District scale flood protection measures that are a little bit further downstream are going to be erected and they'll provide a lot of protection to the site. So in the end, it might not in fact be vulnerable to as much flooding as it first appears. So that's the that's the flooding side and I'll turn it over to the design team to talk more about sustainability.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I believe we have Jacobs on here who could talk a little bit through some of the sustainability goals we've started to create for the project.

[rHW3832dHik_SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I'm Stephan Churis, I'm with Jacobs. And we are early in the design phase and we are looking to target lead gold, essentially for the project. We are looking at issues including heat island reduction, increase energy efficiency and performance, efficient use of plumbing fixtures, lighting controls, increased energy efficiency for equipment and anything in the building, environmental air quality. low emitting materials, you know, most of the issues that we target for LEED. And so again, stressing that we are in the early phases of design, but, you know, we will work to develop our LEED scorecard and, you know, work with the city as we work through our process all together.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Class did you have a follow up question.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I have a ton.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm not surprised.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. I don't know if I should just hammer these all off, and then you guys can try to go through them or should do them one by one I don't know what's easiest, but I'm Andre David.

[David Blumberg]: And I'm sorry to interrupt. Can I ask more of a bigger picture, more along the lines of what Clay's just asked? If he's about to ask a lot of detailed questions, can I ask one more conceptual?

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, go ahead. Let's see. Clay's nodded. OK, thank you.

[David Blumberg]: I guess I'm. This seems like the perfect opportunity to take advantage of some of the tools that we have in our newly minted zoning ordinance for instance a plan commercial development district to try to really put some thorough thinking into what to do with this area that probably is right for development, running from mall to mall along the parkway, has the city thought through that. We have very few pockets where we have this potential for development. We're in the process of the comprehensive plan. We've just gone through the zoning update. And here we are with sort of a one off one parcel development that very much exceeds our zoning limitations. And I would feel a lot better about what's being of a comprehensive view of that neighborhood to see what is the vision for this going forward?

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, David. That might be a question for Alicia.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: And I was going to say that was actually one of my questions also. It does seem like this is another one of those island projects where the bigger picture here, which if thought about beforehand, could be much more rich than just this single project alone.

[Alicia Hunt]: So I'll start by saying that this is something we're absolutely talking about. We're looking at this area. There's the Wellington Circle transportation traffic study that's going on. That's the proponents alluded to that. We have actually applied for a grant to look at this area overall. Um, and I may ask Victor to speak a little bit more to that. But along those lines, this project actually fits everything we've heard so far from the comprehensive plan. This is what has sort of been percolating about this area. Is that a life science area? And part of our thoughts is that this building might serve as a proof of concept for that. specifically about planned development districts, we are talking to some developers who are definitely looking to pursue that in specific locations in the city, but it has to come from the developer, not from the city, right? Like if the developer says, I'd rather use this process or that process, that's their discretion. We don't create a planned development district. We never would. It would always come from a private developer. We might encourage it. But I think Victor is actually the lead on that grant that I mentioned, and so I'd like to actually just see if Vic wants to add a little bit more to what I just said. I hope I didn't overstep.

[Victor Schrader]: No, not at all. That's right on. And you're right. This project is a little bit ahead of the planning we have on the ground. But it's definitely in line with what we're hearing. And we're trying to leverage the comprehensive plan as best we can as we're going through that process and make sure the projects are lining up. These are, as you all know, private initiatives. And this project has been in the works for, for about a year to the day now. So when it was being conceived, the new zoning was out there, but had a long way to go. It preempted the new zoning a little bit. We're hoping to catch up with planning and see the opportunity that, David, I think you're alluding to in place. And I think everyone has in their mind as to what this area could be. There's quite a bit of property that's on the market in the Wellington area that's pretty closely, if not adjacent to this parcel. And so there's planning that should be done. And I think there's a bigger vision that that should be established. But at this point, we're based on community feedback through the comprehensive plan and the process this project has gone through in terms of getting community feedback. It's been overall positive and encouraging. And folks are excited to see a new industry come to Medford. And, you know, now we're in the detail stages of the building, but in terms of the overall vision, we hope to get there soon and certainly think that this project will tie in once we do, but not as far as we can offer on that right now.

[Andre Leroux]: I just want to make sure I'm understanding. So the grant that the city is applying for would be for a district to develop a district plan around well, or what I see? I'm sorry, yes.

[Victor Schrader]: Yeah, it would be, it's over 90 acres that it would cover of the greater Wellington area, including Sycamore Ave, which this board has heard a project on Sycamore Ave recently. And then also an area over by the Wellington, MBTA station that the city has the air rights for so we feel like it's all connected. And it would be that would be the study area would be an economic development study thinking about growth phasing, but layering in, you know, amenities. The potentially new roadway systems or things that needed to be developed in, along with new growth to accommodate it, both at grade and below grade and yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: One thing I want to just build on that is I don't want to incorrectly use the term plan development, because it's now an official thing in our zoning. The studies and economic sorry my video keeps freezing. The studies and economic development study looking at the whole area. If it would then individual developers might choose to use the tool plan development district to propose stuff on one or more properties. That's why I was just shaking my head. I don't want to get us tangled up in those by accident. And so that's a piece of it. And something that Victor alluded to, I just wanted to mention, I realized that nobody had actually called this out. Mayor Brianna has been very enthusiastic about having public meetings about various projects before they file with boards and commissions. she wants, before we engage too too deeply as a city with them, she wants to see what the public reaction is to various projects. And so what Victor was alluding to in the public feedback on this is that there was a public meeting and somebody who is more sharp than I am this evening We'll need to say when that occurred, but there was a public meeting. I think a few of you were on there. It got good feedback. That was part of what fed into the comprehensive plan. And at the last comprehensive plan meeting, we then broke out into the public meeting, we broke out into groups to look at different areas. And we asked residents for feedback on this area as well as other areas. And what we heard from the public was life sciences make sense here. Some higher buildings, some little more density, these commercial buildings, good jobs in Medford make sense along here. Um, so that's where we do feel like we're getting out in front of the comprehensive plan but in a good way because these buildings take time to build and life sciences are hot now and we'd like them to come to Medford and not go to, you know, Charlestown or let's not Watertown or, you know, we or hopscotch us out further out of the city but to to come here to Medford. That's part of why we've encouraged them to continue with the process now and not just wait until the comprehensive plan is done.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Just, I guess, to respond to what member Bloomberg had had asked. So the grant that is being referenced here by the city should the city get it, which is not a done deal, it would be for an economic development plan, not for a district plan that would, you know, address things like design guidelines.

[Victor Schrader]: It wouldn't be that specific, Andre. That's not how we've written it. I think we could take it. That would be a phase two type project. It would be more design related. It's higher level.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Going back to class, would you like to dig into some of your questions?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that's a great overview, and thank you. I mean, I think it really helps for us to hear you know, what members of the community are thinking. I certainly agree that, you know, more development and more jobs and all that is a good thing here. At the beginning of the presentation, you talked a little bit about a retaining wall around the site. I was wondering if you could give maybe just a little more detail on that. And I guess maybe parallel to that, you also talked about sort of a fence around the site. You know, when when Dave, David mentioned, you know, this, and I said, use the word island to think about or to describe the way it sort of feels that at least at this point, I think maybe part of that is the fear that this will just be like, one thing that just sort of except for the, the two, you know, driveways at the front of the site is completely cordoned off and has no sort of maybe not, you know, physical porosity but maybe visual porosity through, you know, and I know there's a big wall on the on the court next door, but you know there is a wetland behind it, so I'm sort of wondering, you know, how, how you're sort of using the nature around you to sort of connect through the site and make it more than just, you know, a six foot tall white plastic fence. I appreciate the renderings. I think what would be great is if you could do some renderings of what the building will look like from where we'll see it, namely, along the parkway from McDonald Park, maybe most importantly, so that, you know, us and maybe more importantly, members of town can see what this is going to look like, you know, when when they're interacting with it. As far as design I don't I don't want to say too much, but I think the designs is starting off in a nice way. I like the way Brian talked about sawtooths. I might encourage that you keep going with that, because I think that's a nice move that helps to break down the scale. I noticed there weren't any on the west side. I don't know if that's something that you could bring in. And maybe that sort of leads into my other comment, which is about, and especially thinking about future developments and everything, thinking about where you are, in along this really beautiful park, thinking about context and materials. For me, I'm totally fine with glass buildings, but I wonder if maybe slightly less glass, maybe a little less Um, I'm not really finding the right word, but like it seems like a very sort of glassy showy building and sort of wedge between two wetlands and along this parkway. Um, I wonder if maybe a little more sort of, um, opaque materials, maybe a little more masonry or things like that might be a little more appropriate. Um, I'm not, I'm not gonna say, you know, look at Medford references, because I don't think there's a whole lot, especially at that scale. And I think as far as the variances are concerned, that is obviously the thing that jumped out at me initially when I was looking through the materials. Obviously a proponent for the, for the, for the density, and for the amount of space. But I also wonder, you know, he's, I'm assuming these are in the 40,000 square feet footprints for these floors I'm wondering if, you know, that might be a little big for the site, I don't know. It does seem like these variances are, you know, they're aggressive and it may totally be warranted, but it's like something I feel like this board and maybe the others on the board that aren't an architect might benefit from a slightly better understanding of how, you know, what's driving the size sort of massing of this building, which is gonna be imposing, certainly in the short term. I could probably stop there.

[Andre Leroux]: I'll let the project team respond to some of those before we continue.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Perfect, thank you, Chair, and thank you for the comments. I think we'll probably just start with the retaining wall and the fence surrounding the site. I know BHP Civil as well as MVLA are here, so if you can just touch on that.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_15]: Well, this is Mark Anhansen, VHB, taking over for Tim because he's got a seven o'clock stop. We started with a plan that sort of followed the existing topography. The site as it sits slopes away from Mystic Valley Parkway to the back. One of the sort of pitfalls of that is there's no actual drainage infrastructure on the site. Everything goes surface from the front to the back. And, you know, our first, you know, thought was okay we have to build it up a little bit, you know, we'll be a little high in the front and then we'll drop down to our loading dock elevation but as we began to look at the the flooding constraints and the, you know, the, the need to protect the building once again also as sort of a competing requirement. We pulled the building up and plateaued it. I think we can be a little bit more sensitive in what it looks like or how we transition it, but it's really being driven by the need to protect the building in what is now a projected flooding event, but also making sure that along Misty Valley Parkway, we preserve the pattern of stormwater that splits going to Misty Valley Parkway and to the back. you know we focus on our connection to the the parkway in the park across the street. It's just going to be very hard to connect it to the back without exposing the building so that was sort of what's driving our design now happy to talk about it and see if there are ways that we can mitigate how it connects or you know what are the town's priorities and how you'd like this to connect. It's a good place it's a good, it's a good comment it's, you know, Yeah, no, I mean, bit of a challenge.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Initially, just from the presentation, I was assuming it was like a bathtub. So I think I feel a little bit better about the fact that it's proud of proud of the surrounding site rather than been down into it. But yeah, I think, you know, just being mindful, again, thinking about future development of how you're treating those, those walls and the edges there, I think that that'll be important. Thank you.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: And I think the next one we should probably touch on is some of the design comments. We appreciate those comments.

[Andre Leroux]: And I think Mr. Locke, actually, before you move on to that, we do have one of the city engineers with extensive stormwater background. And I'm wondering if Owen might be willing to speak to his review of the project. Absolutely. Apologies, Chair.

[Owen Wartella]: Hi, I'm sorry, I'm coming in late. I just found out that you guys wanted me on this meeting. My comments on the stormwater were, I understand conceptually what it is. I think the big takeaway here is that the board probably would be concerned about would be that the stormwater is being collected within the building and then being pumped out Um, and the other thing that they may be interested in is that, um, that goes to what you guys mentioned before was basically, um, the extent of the site itself kind of imposed into that 25 foot buffer area to the wetlands in the back. And those are the two big takeaways that have to deal with stormwater. Mostly because the wall is basically filling in that wetland area, that volume area.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_15]: The adjacency, yeah. Not the actual wetland, I just want to be clear.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Correct, it's not filling the wetland.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, just to reinforce something I think that Cles had said about some renderings, I'd certainly love to see these elevations in a rendering so that we can really get a sense of the site, the contouring of the site and the retaining wall and the fencing and how that all works together and how it affects the abutting properties. That'd be something that I would definitely like to see.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I'm can I just jump it back in for a second? And I think you've all heard me say this before. I think, you know, you've done a very nice presentation. We really appreciate it. And this is sort of my blanket comment about this process. It's it's sort of, it's on you to make sure that the information that we need is available and clear. So I mentioned the renderings, but I think I would ask that you think about that in a much broader way in how you present this information, because it's certainly going to go through us, but the city is going to see it as well. So showing us Um. Exhibits that really reinforce, um, the design and how the building is going to live on its site. I think are really important. Um I'm not suggesting that this is a necessity. But this is certainly the kind of area and project where a model would be. A very Tell us about this project.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: I do class. Mr. luck. Thank you, class. Appreciate those comments. And yeah, we'll definitely be following up with more. So one of the, I know we just talked through a little bit of the renderings and there were some comments on design as well. I know on the breakdown of the scale and the context and materials, and especially the glass. I know Cube 3 is on here. They could probably talk a little bit through those design comments. And I know Jacobs is on here as well if they want to add anything. So feel free to

[SPEAKER_09]: Sure, thanks. This is Brian O'Connor. I appreciate the comments. I think they were really, really thoughtful. You know, one of the things that we've been wrestling with a little bit is the making sure that we're not treating the building the same on every side and really thinking about the flow of traffic and the flow of people on Mystic Valley in both east and west directions. I do think the building is flat on the west side, sort of facing away from traffic moving away from Medford. It's a little bit flatter. I think part of that is due to the efficiency we really need to try to achieve in the typical plates on the building to make the lab functionality work. But I certainly think your comments about the sawtooth and materiality and transparency are all things we're absolutely happy to look at in more detail. And I do think also your comment about the renderings and what it's gonna look like in real life from the public realm is important. So we should plan on Eastern and Western views at the ground level as you're driving or walking along the edge and from the park across the street. I think they were all great comments and I think they landed with me, so.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Thanks.

[Andre Leroux]: Mr. Locke, I don't know if there were additional answer responses you wanted to mention before we go to other board members.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I think the one of the comments that we heard was for the variances. Again, I know Michael Parker had touched on that a little bit, and I don't know if he wants to jump back in and touch on it more. And I know you mentioned floor plates and those type of things. So we do have Jacobs on here who could probably help out a little bit as well. Michael, if you want to just address some of those.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_13]: Sure, great, thank you. Yeah, and I think Jacobs would have a lot to say about this. And what I would say about the, Mr. Anderson, as you point out, the aggressiveness. I live in Charlestown, so I appreciated Alicia's comments about not letting lab jump over to Charlestown. So I love the competition. But I also live in an area where MGH has some labs. And their outdated labs from many, many years ago are pretty small, right? your two or three stories. And I think what we're seeing. For contemporary lab space is you need to have certain design components to make them successful as this industry has grown. So I'm looking at things like the floor plate that you brought up, minimum floor to floor heights, you need at least 15 feet for duct work. Things like the support systems, they take up about 50% of the building itself. You've got the minimum spans, the least spans of 45 to 55 feet. So, you know, it feels maybe it does feel like it's aggressive, but for a contemporary life sciences building, these are the way that these are the way that they're being built right now. So I don't know if anyone from Jacobs would like to piggyback on that.

[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I can piggyback on that. I'm Scott Aquilina from Jacobs and my colleague Stefan spoke previously. Our role right now in this early design phase is to make sure that the fundamentals of the building are going to support a state-of-the-art, modern life science building that will be attractive to future tenants. And so what was discussed in terms of the Florida 4-Height and the spacing of the columns in a kind of a wide module are all things that allow for very flexible lab office layouts in a market that is very active right now, but still very competitive. And the expectations for space in terms of functionality, but also in terms of ambiance is very high. So that, and the, The footprint is really dictated by kind of the typical 40, 60% lab office mix and kind of what the marketplace is sort of indicating in terms of what the capacity needs to be on those floors. So that the building is designed internally, the building is designed kind of from those parameters. You're also can see on this design that there are two levels of penthouse. And that actually is a good thing because it means that more of the mechanical systems are going to be concealed rather than exposed in any way. And so, again, there's a lot of mechanical that comes into servicing those lab areas. So that's what I would add at this point in time on that. There was a question about the kind of the amount of glass in the building. One of the things that we look forward to is as we develop the design is that the building would be less reflective and more transparent. um, so that, um, activities, uh, and features within the building would be able to be revealed. Um, the depth of the building would be revealed, um, and that would feel a little bit less, um, potentially feel more inviting, uh, and more inhabited. Um, and that would be something that we would try to develop as, uh, as the design progresses.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Um, I appreciate you getting into those topics. It's one of the questions that I had too was just understanding the kind of the business rationale and thought process for the massing of the building, like why eight stories and why the massing that you have there. So more details about that could be helpful for us as well. I'd be interested in learning more about that.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I would definitely encourage just thinking very carefully, you know, totally understanding, you know, the typical lab widths and all the needs. But also, you know, I think it seems to me like if you tighten, you know, sharpen your pencils a little bit, you might be able to knock one or two of those variances away. And I think that would be a pretty compelling story. to say that you thought about that and I think, you know, the board should also understand that, you know, the building is eight stories, but mechanical penthouses are going to be in the 45 foot range so you're essentially adding three more stories to the building. In terms of massing and that's just for the benefit of my fellow board members to understand so it's essentially an 11 story building. the penthouses don't count towards the height of the building. So it's pretty big and pretty tall, and it might be merited, especially if there's talk about future developments of similar heights. And I certainly know the residential building a couple doors down is probably in that neighborhood as well. So there's also precedent. But yeah, thanks for all your comments.

[Andre Leroux]: I'd like to ask our other board members if they have some questions or comments that they'd like to get out. Jackie.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Hi, hello. I'm Jackie Furtado, the Community Development Board Vice Chair. Thank you all. I want to preface my comment by first saying that I think this is an amazing opportunity for the city of Medford. But as with all boards, we do have a duty to the city as well as the residents. And that's where we start to get into the details. One of the things I wanted to do is echo my colleagues and well, echo others before me. And me as an economic development specialist myself, I see that as a great opportunity, right? But I think that's where I want all these great things, but I would need an engineer to explain to me how this is gonna happen. An architect, I need it to be explained to me in layman's terms, exactly how places already spelt it out. I would need to see this a little bit more from, a residential or again, layman's terms, just so that I can take it in and see how awesome this opportunity can be. And in saying that, I'll leave the design alone for now, but, and I know that we're really looking at the site itself, but one of the things that caught my eye and my attention was the 422 parking spaces that actually impact off the site. And I'm just trying to better understand that as well. I believe it was Stephanie from VHB that explained earlier that there was some environmental impacts that were going to trigger MEPA. I was wondering if one, if that was transportation and two, the 422 parking spaces, I see that there is a biking incentive. Are there any other incentives to match, to bring the users of that site to the MBTA Wellington Circle? I didn't hear much about that and how that was going to be used, the pedestrian use. I also know that Todd Blake, our transportation commissioner, has mentioned something about pedestrian walkways, but I wasn't sure how the proponent is going to envision that. There's just so many things that I would like to better understand so that I can see how this amazing opportunity can fit better in Medford. And especially with that Wellington Circle, I know that MassDOT has had some previous problems with the city and just trying to mitigate the traffic that's already a little crazy there in what it's intersection. So again, I'm just as a board member and a resident that lives on Mystic Valley Parkway, mind you, I'm just trying to better understand how this all goes together. And thank you. And that's the only thing I have.

[Deanna Peabody]: Yeah, Andre, I just wanted to echo that and see if we could hear a little bit more about the traffic study. And I saw Todd Blake had done a nice report on it and had recommendations for mitigation and what the team thought about that.

[Andre Leroux]: Thanks. Would you like Commissioner Blake on?

[Deanna Peabody]: Sure. If he doesn't mind giving a summary of his report.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I'll be still there.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah. Thank you, Mr. chair and board members. Can you hear me fine. Yes. So, yeah, as usual that the proponents traffic engineers there's decent job and you're trying to estimate impacts but as we know it's, you know, estimated so there could be. You know that it's projection based and the impacts may not be exactly what they state in their report so I just tried to highlight some things that could happen in terms, some, maybe for the better some maybe for the worst depending on trip distribution particular, because it's a right in right out only site. The driveways and it's a, because it's a medium mystic Valley Parkway. all the trips in have to come in a certain direction all trips out will go in one direction right so so how do they get to and from the, you know, the exiting to the south or east and when they're coming in, you know how do they get to the site so, so, you know, they had to make some trip distribution assumption so there's no necessarily fault but, you know, depending on how that shakes out some intersections in some areas could be more impacted than others. So in terms of like other board members had mentioned, we always look to opportunities to reduce single occupant vehicle trips by, you know, trying to encourage and improve bicycling and psych transit use and pedestrian use so. So my review had suggested some things to help address those or help encourage those other uses. modes, I mean, to reduce vehicle dependency. So, you know, I quickly touched on some of the proponent had mentioned the feasibility study for a crosswalk crossing mix about Mr. Kelly Parkway in the vicinity of the site. So I suggest besides just studying it. designing and constructing implementation of it. So, it's likely would have some sort of enhancement to it so that it's not just an uncivilized crosswalk which could be a little daunting to cross that road. So something like RFP is or, or pedestrian hybrid beacon or something like that, working with mass duty because it's their roadway that it'd be subject to their review. So, you know, curve space is valuable and competitive so other potential uses for that shoulder that exists in Mr. Valley Parkway. So you could either do bump outs for pedestrians to shorten the distance, or you could add bike lanes and that shoulder on either side, which then you wouldn't be able to do the bump outs, or, you know, Depending on what happens with the bus network redesign MBTA, you know, there's also competition of potentially bus lanes and things like that, but they all kind of occupy the same space on the shoulder. So, with that being said, if the state for some reason didn't approve the. the new pedestrian crosswalk enhanced crosswalk then we give some options of other things they could do like countdown pedestrian indications that various signals for sponsoring a blue bike station and, and bikes as well. We also suggest. designing conceptually a buffered bicycle lanes painted in the roadway in the right now usable shoulders but they posted as no parking so they're basically unused. So if we could help utilize that space there that's already paved on both sides of the street will help connect a lot of things that meant for us going on. We're looking into a lot of trail systems to the west of the site. We're looking into. blue bikes to the east of the site to connect better to the MBTA station so so a lot of looking into bicycle facilities on Mr. Valley Park would be very helpful to connect into other projects we have going on we have an underpass project going on at 25% design that would connect the McDonnell Park area over to the MBTA station without having to cross route 28, and that would directly benefit This type of development so any connections to and from those is very important. In addition, there's some recent zoning change or zoning changes that referred to translate to management. So we're, you know, I'm recommending that they join the local TMA, which helps, you know, with that sort of thing and provide valuable insights of what they could do. In terms of employee discounts for T pass things like that or, or just even pre tax. In addition to that I'm just looking at my memo at the same time. So yeah, in lieu of the TMA, if for some reason the proponent was going to have, say, their own shuttle to and from MBTA station, then that would, in my mind, negate the need for the TMA because they'd have a direct TDM measure. But those TMA type services are provided because a lot of times an individual development won't have the resources, won't be big enough to do it all by themselves so they could pool resources and that sort of thing. So then in addition to that, I wanted to stress that because the right and right only they need guide signage, directing people of how to do the potential jug handle move that look, Mr. Carly Parkway to locus street, so that they're off to the right, take a left and take another left to perform, essentially a legal U turn. So, so things to educate, whoever ends up being an employer, employee at this facility, letting them know how to get around would be valuable. So I'm recommending vehicle video detection on some of the area, traffic signals as well because the study assumed it was actuated but when, when detection is broken it ends up running free time so it's not as efficient, and depending on which way that exiting trips go. They likely will go through commercial at the parkway and commercial at Riverside and right now due to disrepair that those are not functioning. So and by going video versus roadway it will help in the future not to be impacted by road deterioration or utility companies digging them up. So hopefully that summarizes it for you Deanna and everyone.

[Deanna Peabody]: Yeah I think that the signals are important given like as you said the right in right out. without a U-turn ability, getting back to say 93, there's no ramp, I don't think. Yeah, there's no ramp west of the site. So you basically, like if you do it from Google, it brings you all the way to like downtown Medford on Clippership Drive to get back to go north. So it's sort of a tricky way unless you do a U-turn going back to Wellington Circle to get around there to get back.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, in the trip distribution they had I think 40% or so going Riverside towards Medford Square, and then the other option would be potentially they showed 9% Fellsway west north to get to INA3. As many of us know there's three different exits to take on 93 so you could go to either one of them. So that's a very good point, because otherwise to get to some of these yeah they have to circle a major block so.

[Deanna Peabody]: Yeah, and also I just want to reiterate that if the detection isn't working, then what's shown for level of service and stuff like that in the TIS is not accurate. So, it's important to fix the detection.

[Andre Leroux]: And just to add to those comments. I agree like all the the exiting traffic is going to feed into some already kind of challenging bottlenecks, either at mystic have or route. You know, 16 West, or cutting through the school area to get over to, you know, Riverside have or potentially going down. I mean, seems to me, maybe the best preferable option would be to go down, you know, commercial street and try to get back over to the fells, you know, route 28 but you that as may, we have to think about how we're directing the traffic and. It seems to me that better than the best outcome of all would be to have a larger proportion of the employees either taking public transportation from Wellington, which is just a half a mile or less away, or biking, which is a fabulous regional bike network is just getting better and better all the time right across the street. So I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit more to how you're going to incentivize commuters to use those alternative modes and Why do you need over 400 parking spaces?

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'll echo Michael's comments. I live in Charlestown as well. So I'm very much dealing with traffic every day. And I know that's a hot topic on everyone's minds. I do want to pass it over to Ryan White. He's on our BHB team and he's done all the transportation work on the project. So Ryan, feel free to jump in.

[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, sure. So I think all everyone's comments here are are exactly on point. But I mean, I think that is a benefit of this site to that there is a good possibility, potential for dispersion of these trips to multiple different exits in along 93 to help spread that out. And as Todd mentioned, That's how we approach this traffic study is assigning appropriate different percentages of these project generated trips onto the various different routes that can be imagined. I think from the mitigation standpoint, I don't think the team has any concerns and actually looks forward to having conversations with the city and incorporating all of the elements that Todd had mentioned in the letter. Um, obviously, a lot of those elements require close coordination with D. O. T. Um, and D. C. R. Just due to the, um, the park across the way, um, and, um, Mystic Valley Parkway as a whole. Um, I think as, um. tenants coming into this building. From the traffic study perspective, we wanted to make the most conservative assumption, which is assuming that everyone's driving here with the end goal to be far better than that by providing and kind of encouraging people to use alternative modes by providing them these facilities, as we mentioned, providing secure indoor bike parking so their bike is not outside Um, having, um, on-site coordinators to help people, um, sort out the, um, potential commuting patterns, whether it be bikes or transit, working with DOT to, um, determine the feasibility of this mid-block crossing to better connect to the bike paths, um, um, along the river, as well as connecting, um, to the MBTA. Um, so all things that, um, we're exploring, but This building, just with the size, I mean, it's expected to have a population of about 500 to 550 people in this building. So we do need to make sure that parking is provided on the site for those that are forced to take vehicles just due to where they live. as well as making sure that none of this parking spills over into the streets or the other roadway networks and the site is self-contained and can support the whole population that will be coming to and from the site each day.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. And I'm assuming that this building is being built without specific tenants in mind. Is that correct?

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yes, that's correct. We are targeting BSL level one or two labs, which is the lower end of the safety or the biosafety levels for labs. So we'd be talking about your general research labs, nothing in level three and four. That's when you get into more serious chemicals and things like that. So we're not expecting that. However, we don't have a tenant in mind yet. We are trying to make this program as flexible as possible to get a get a future tenant into the building.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. And could you also just talk a little bit about the kind of trash removal systems that happening through the loading dock? Any, you know, medical waste, how that's being handled?

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, absolutely. And I'll let the architects and the engineers, I'm going to call it Jacobs and Cube 3 take that. They will be, of course, any trash removal will be subject to city of Medford policies and state policies. So we'll be following those guidelines, but Cube 3 and Jacobs, I don't know if you guys want to hop in real quick.

[SPEAKER_07]: Well, in terms of any lab waste, like liquids, chemicals, or other materials, they're stored on site in a safe location, in a used chemical storage room, and then taken off site on a regular basis. So it's handled separately, so lab waste is handled. separately, contained separately and handled it by a separate contract for removals.

[Andre Leroux]: And is that room adjacent to the loading dock?

[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, it would be adjacent to the service elevator and the loading dock within the core and available to all tenants. It would be written into the lease for tenants to be able to have that kind of capacity for all tenants.

[SPEAKER_09]: And conventional trash would be handled in a similar location and taken out through that enclosed loading dock area.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. And just to add to that, one of the, one of the main reasons, one of the other reasons why it's over near the loading dock is to avoid the front edge of the site. We don't want trash or smells building up at the front edge. We have the retail space out there. We have a community flex space in in the ground floor that we don't want smelling like trash, obviously, if we're inviting the community and we don't want that. So another reason why it's back already loading docks as well.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Do other board members have comments or questions?

[Jenny Graham]: Hi, Andrea, this is Christy. I'd like to ask just a few questions. I just want to thank our fellow board members for the detailed questions they asked and I concur with a lot of their statements. This may be a question for the city, but in terms of thinking of the longer term plan for the multiple parcels that are coming on the market in this area, is there any thought giving to how this first development and future developments may start to connect in the future and allow possibilities for connection between the parcels as you think of it as a possibility to become like a future campus? Anybody want to take that?

[Victor Schrader]: It's a great question. Yes, we have in terms of how to improve the existing sidewalk infrastructure and street infrastructure. If you think of commercial street, that really functions as a back alley to some of the logistics companies there. We see that transitioning into more of a fully functioning pedestrian friendly streets. We strongly encourage rise to activate the ground level with the plaza, with retail. I think in terms of a campus, we envision future improvements to the wetland area that may be able to build some pedestrian connectivity behind these buildings. Through that, actually, staff just took a tour of the Alewife fresh pond area and some of the improvements they've made over there. We're really impressed by some of the boardwalk features that they've implemented and walkways and such. So from that aspect, yes, we are thinking about it. I think that goes to the broader study and vision we'd like to implement here. We're not quite there yet, but certainly are thinking about those on a project by project basis and encouraging rise. They didn't get into it much tonight, but have talked to neighboring property owners and have actually put a lot of thought into what the future of this could look like. And it's tough, difficult to see on just this single site, but I think it's there and can happen. They're certainly not limiting that potential.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. In terms of the community benefits I noticed there's communities flex space. Would you mind explaining what your vision and intent is for that space and the community access to that.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Sure, yeah. One of the things that came out of the initial design of this project was we did have additional space on the ground floor. We had already included the retail, we had already included the landscape area. And this space was sort of, you couldn't do a ton with it, but it was large. It was almost 9,000 square feet of space. And we really wanted to make sure that we were utilizing that to the best of our ability. What we've done is we have since the beginning allocated that as a community flex space, and we haven't really designed what that space is going to be. But we've already been talking with, you know, a few groups about the potential to bring a nonprofit group into that space. and really activate it even more to bring more folks to the site. We've talked with the Medford Vocational High School about potentially bringing people into that, children, youth, high schoolers into that space. They have an upcoming uh, bio, uh, life science program that, that principal Fallon has been, uh, you know, talking to us about. So, uh, we envisioned that that could happen down there, uh, and really a multitude of different things. It could be, you know, lounge space, you know, some sort of working pods, anything in between there. We really wanted to make sure that we left. the space open to opportunities in the future. And if anybody on this board does have any ideas, we're happy to take them into consideration. I know we've been involved in the community for about a year now, but obviously everyone on this board has a lot more experience in the community. So if you do have any suggestions, the design team here is happy to take them into consideration and start looking a little bit deeper into what this space could be. So I appreciate that question, Christy. Thank you so much.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, no, I think that's really important. I think having a space that allows for intentional interactions with the community for educational purposes, for training purposes, even around workforce development, but really leveraging this as the first major life science building in the city of Medford and making people aware and having access to the science. and a better understanding of what goes on in this building is a benefit. I would just like to reinforce the request or suggestion for renderings and perspectives of how pedestrians will really experience the building. They will never experience it from up top, so really understanding how the pedestrian engages with the building at the street level. would be much appreciated.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Thank you. Thank you, Christy. Appreciate those. I know we do have one rendering of the frontage of the building from the ground level. I'm not sure if someone from Q3 has that readily available, but we did have one made up from the ground level as if you're walking or biking on the street. So we're happy to share that with you. If not tonight, we can for sure send that over to you as well.

[Jenny Graham]: Great, thanks.

[SPEAKER_09]: We'll follow up with that, Clement.

[Jenny Graham]: One final comment I have just reading through Medford Historic Commission comments is, are there any concerns from your end on some of their comments and how that may affect how you move forward with maintaining the design of the building or addressing the impacts that they identified?

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Thank you, Christy. I'll let Brian from Cube 3 and Jacobs handle that question.

[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you. On the historical commission? Yeah, I think we read that. I think we'll go through that in detail. I think one of the challenges here is this is, as has been mentioned on the call, there's not a lot of precedent for this building typology in Medford. I think we need to read that carefully. I think we need to be responsive. I also think we need to be careful not to try to make this building feel historical. I mean, I think this is sort of a forward leaning building for this city, one that I think is important to future development. We don't want it to feel like it doesn't belong here. And there's been sort of a lot of thoughts so far on the mass and scale and the management of that. I think the earlier comments about, you know, thinking about, you know, how these sawtooth forms really can work to break down the volume, thinking about a little bit more I don't know if it's a little bit more. Opacity potentially or a little bit more transparency versus reflectivity. I think we could really get there. So I don't have the answers right now, but we did read the comments and I think we're prepared to really make some positive engagement on them.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.

[David Blumberg]: I guess I've lived here for 20 plus years and Wellington traffic has been an issue throughout, and it doesn't get better as there's obviously more and more development in that area. It's one thing I kind of wish we were going more for the plans district because it would go to city council and we'd have more public, public input on that issue in particular because those are the folks who are going to get the phone calls if that traffic spills out into the various neighborhoods of the city and hasn't created a negative impact on our residents but There's only so much I guess we can do at this point as a board. I think a shuttle to Wellington is got to be, it just, it just has to happen. And obviously that's not going to happen on day one before you lease the building or much of the building but you've got to be able to connect folks to the orange line, I think, above and beyond those who are comfortable with biking and more aggressive non driving options. Are there showers in the building, plans for showers, not for the public's consumption, but for those employees working in the building?

[SPEAKER_09]: I don't know that we have an actual direct shower plan right now. I think as the building footprints develop, as the end users are identified, I mean, it's certainly something that could evolve, but I don't think we have a direct plan for that right now in the building footprint.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And just to answer your shuttle question, David, it's not something that we're foreign to. We're actually working on a shuttle plan for another project in Dorchester right now. So it's not something that's unfamiliar to us and something we can certainly look into for you as well.

[David Blumberg]: Electric charging stations in your garages, did your plans include a number of those as well?

[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I think we're certainly able to incorporate those within the within the planning.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, I had some concerns I guess around just the, you know, it is such a tall building on a relatively small footprint. I was very surprised we didn't hear more from police and fire on the rotation accessibility entrance exit at the site. Given that it's only a right turn out, I'd be concerned that you're going to have folks queuing in the drive lane. And if something happens at the wrong time, that could be a real problem. Does anyone from the city know, I mean, does the city even have equipment to deal with the height of this building at the, from the access point, which will be so close to the building itself? Can they get to a top floor and put out a fire?

[Victor Schrader]: Andre, David, actually Chief Friedman is on the on the I saw him.

[Andre Leroux]: He's still on.

[John Freedman]: I'm right here.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay.

[John Freedman]: So, to answer your question about the getting to the top floor. Obviously a building this tall, you know, you know our aerials. The way we would fight a fire in this would be from the interior. So we look at elevators and stairwells and pipes inside. So we would basically take a high rise back and go in and fight it from inside. As far as getting to the roof, it's definitely taller than our longest ladder. So clearly it fits the definition of a high rise. And that's why the codes are all there that we would go in and fight the fire from the inside. As far as like the proximity to the building, I guess the closer to the building you get, the higher you can go, obviously. So, but you know, with this building, like I said, we're not gonna, the heights of the floors and stuff, raise it up over the highest ladder. So once that happens, it's considered high rise and then like I said, we'll fight everything from inside.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, I appreciate your input. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Pete, could you just state that that's a standard thing? It's not because we don't have anything this tall, right? Because I'll note we have buildings behind City Hall that are pretty tall. I, off the top of my head, don't know how tall they are. But is this, you're not, are you making do versus this is how you do it?

[John Freedman]: No, this is how you would do it. This is the way the code works. And when they go over that height of the ladder, that's fluid. It also changes, it brings into light all the other codes that would make it, it changes the construction of it without getting into the specifics of it, but it would make it, you know, constructed in a way that we would be able to, you know, limit the fire growth and cause it to be completely sprinkled. And like I said, we have our systems in there with elevators and standpipes and, you know, it's just a different way of fighting fire. You just, you know, you're less, you don't really need to have an aerial reach a roof on a high rise because you can get there through other means.

[Andre Leroux]: Right, I assume, can you explain whether a building like this, obviously a building of this size is, you know, is sprinkled. Are there special systems that are installed for, you know, high rise lab?

[John Freedman]: Okay, I would leave that to the engineers. Definitely. So the height of the building, I think will govern the different systems that go in there with the building code. and the life safety code, and when it, with the level of labs that are in there, they'd be required to do certain things on the code. So level one and two is the lesser of the, I guess it's one and two, and then three and four are the, it gets worse the higher the number goes. So, and I don't believe three and four was ever mentioned, it's just ones and twos, that's what they're talking about. So it's a lower risk than the higher number.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Thank you, David and we do have the engineer from Jacobs on to I don't know if you want to touch on any of that.

[SPEAKER_07]: Well, I would just say that I don't think there's anything about the lab occupancy that changes the fire hazard in the building because of the. These are kind of, these are not high hazard labs. So, you know, basically the fire hazard and the kind of the stair widths and egress capacities are going to be based on occupancy, which is essentially a business occupancy. So I don't think there's anything about the lab function that makes the building more hazardous. So, there, you know, if we got to get into the weeds, there are, there is containment of, liquids and gases within the building that have to be carefully monitored and limited quantities. And that is prescribed by code. And as you get higher up in the building, you're allowed to have less open container of these potentially, you know, sensitive liquids and materials. But that's kind of a separate kind of issue about containment and storage of those materials. materials versus life safety for people. So that would be just, I hope that's helpful, my comment there.

[David Blumberg]: Yes, thank you. Thank you. I also wanted to ask what, where would you even put on the site? What I think would be the inevitable request from tenants to locate gas tanks of one sort or another, nitrogen, oxygen tanks. I think it's very common to see for a building of this size, I would imagine. Inevitably, you're gonna have three to six tanks, one to three tanks. There's gonna be some number of clients who will want to see that and use that.

[SPEAKER_07]: So oftentimes, that is sort of more point of use within a laboratory suite. And so that would be built into a lab of the fed out per floor. They will use smaller quantities, like in canisters, things like that. If the building is developed where there's more centralized supply of of gases like nitrogen or compressed air, that would be in a room within the core on the ground floor. It could be a place that you carve out either near the loading dock or even carved out of the parking garage in terms of the basement location. So that would mean that that would be part of the kind of core building amenity. for tenants, which is an option, or it's developed kind of more point of use and built into the fit out by tenant. So there wouldn't be any centralized kind of infrastructure for those gases.

[David Blumberg]: Okay. If someone could address too, the difficulty of this site, we have so many places in Medford where it's almost You get the one way this way, you get the one way that way. Try to get directions to someone from out of town to get to a location like this in Medford. It can be very difficult. And I guess I'm just trying, I'm a little skeptical about the accessibility currently for folks to get to the cafe. Is it really something that the community can take advantage of like how do I really even get there there's three parking spaces on site. Are they using the garage, the community space maybe you can just walk me through like what's the plan for the, for the public to be invited to the location. in its current configuration, putting aside the fact that maybe the parkway will be developed in a different way that will be more accessible up and down the line in the years ahead.

[SPEAKER_09]: So Quinlan, I don't know if you want to touch on that one. I'm happy to as well. I think the idea is that the cafe space is very public. I think what we're doing is we're really planning for reinforcing the pedestrian circulation along the edge of Mystic Valley Parkway. So I think there's a hope and a goal that we're planning for how this sort of area of the city is gonna develop and become more vibrant and more engaged. And I think providing more surface parking or more parking of any kind that's visible and accessible really kind of works against that, especially since we have such a tight piece of frontage there. So I think we do recognize there is some need. I think we're trying to be very deliberate that hopefully the use here is supported by the occupants of the building, the future occupants of development on either side. the strong pedestrian circulation along the leading edge of the street, and hopefully the development of that public plaza areas as a reinforcement to the park on the other side of Mystic Valley Parkway that could encourage people to come over. I'm not sure if that really answers your question, but I think we're really focused on making sure the cafe and the functionality of that space has a strong connection with the way it's being designed. And we don't sort of take the easy way out and just put a bunch of surface parking so it's easy so that Quinlan and his team can just get somebody in there. We want it to be the right use in a way that makes sense for sort of long term planning. I don't know if that answers your question, but that was sort of the genesis of how we were thinking about it as a team trying to be more holistic.

[David Blumberg]: I appreciate the comment and I guess it's, it's worth. I look, I liked hearing from you that the hey the cafe is going to be an amenity for the employees to build, which, you know, that's, that's probably, you know, the biggest driver of it. And if it is a community amenity at the same time it's better for everyone to, but probably going to help you leave space and keep folks happy. Come to work in the building that that makes a lot of sense. I'm going to pass it back to you. Andrea.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I'll pass it back to you. Okay Can I just jump in for a second on that? I think. Brian. Um what I'm sort of feeling, and I'm guessing this is sort of what David's feelings that. There's something about. The cafe and. The public You know, putting these sort of amenities or retail spaces in a building is is like super important but it just feels like the retail spaces like. I don't know that I have an answer to that. I initially I was sort of wondering if it was bigger space. I'm a little unconvinced by the community space as well. I was wondering if there was maybe it's a combination of the two. Um, I don't know, but it just seems like a tiny little cafe is going to do little to activate the ground floor. Other than for people in the building, you know, and we all know that that probably won't sustain a business in that location. Um. I. Maybe this is more of a question. this may be a question for Victor or others from the town, but I do feel like along the same thread of, you know, like, what's, is there sort of like a master plan for the site? You've sort of gotten the answer on that. But I do wonder if there could possibly be sort of a master plan for the open space along the parkway on that side of the road. Like, is it, um, You know, we talked about those those strange parking spaces where you know the cop cars park in front of the courthouse, but it's kind of a turn lane but it's, it's just, it's, it's. And I wonder if that should. all be sort of rethought holistically, you know, I would love I think I think it would work great is to see a protected bike lane in that location away from the parkway because people drive much too fast there for for biking adjacent to the road. I think, you know, just thinking of that street section and how we could, again, maybe this project is a, is a, you know, an example of how of how we'd like the rest of that, of that strip of road to be to be handled but I'd love to see like a street section where we talk about, you know, there's, there's a bike lane zone and pedestrian zone planting zone and it's just, it's really thought through and then that could be sort of implemented on, you know, all the way down to Wegmans and towards Wellington. I think that would be maybe a really nice way to sort of start the development in this area. Because I do think that parkways, it's a really nice area, the sidewalks now are pitiful, and it could be way better. And I think the development of an active strip like that would actually really go a long way in activating, drawing people out along that edge.

[Andre Leroux]: I'm just going to say you don't, you know, we know that you're under the weather, not expecting you to, to hang on here we're going to be continuing this till another meeting so don't feel obligated please to, to keep participating at this time.

[Victor Schrader]: Thank you for the out chair. I appreciate it. Yeah, I just wanted to say that I agree with class and there's. There is thought going into that. Maybe Todd can speak a little bit to some of the planning that's happened in this area from a transportation perspective. But yes, I love to see this project be a model and bring some new thought to how that street can function, because it clearly doesn't function well for residents that live there or people that are visiting that area for whatever reason.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. So I think we've heard from a number of the board members some things that we'd like to see some more details on, particularly perspectives and renderings to give a better sense of the edges of the site and how it's experienced by folks on the ground. One thing that I will say in terms of my own comments, this is an interesting location. I think it's a challenging location in that It's certainly a place that's appropriate for density, being so close to mass transit and an already heavily developed and circulated area around Wellington, but at the same time it's part of a parkway across from a river and parks and bikeways. And I think that getting this project right, as a lot of the other board members have said is going to be important to this board, in that it's going to set a precedent for development along that edge of the street so I think when we come back next time if you could think about some of these things a little bit more. As Chris said, you know how, what kinds of improvements of street treatments, you know, would be appropriate for that side of route 16. If I agree a protected bike lane would be terrific. you know, but then we're balancing, you know, is there a dedicated lane for, you know, shuttles or buses to, you know, or places for them to pull over? So if you could think a little bit about that, that would be great. One of the concerns that I have, I think just about the, you know, the massing that's come up a couple of times has been, you're looking for, you know, only 10 feet of width to the property line on either side. That's about what I have in my two family house next door. So that's very tight and I'm not certain that it's really appropriate for a parkway. I'd be concerned if every other property that came in to be redeveloped along that route would be expecting the same thing, in which case you'd have a number of high rises very close together, which I don't think is appropriate for the parkway, you know, and So if you could think about that a little bit more it's not necessarily I think this board. You know, we have been so definitely supportive of of density of reducing parking of walkability of mixing uses. So I think we're excited about this project I think we like the start that you've made here, I personally I'd like to see a rendering of it, but I think I like the plaza and the front, you know, and I do like having some kind of activity along there so that people walking from Wellington, especially in the evening or during the winter when there's, it's dark, there is more kind of a little bit more lighting and activity. But, you know, on this issue of balancing that dense development with the natural resources that are surrounding it. You know, it's on the rear of the building is this, what really is probably the last remaining urban wild of any significant size in Medford. And while I think the future of that parcel is up in the air. I certainly know as someone who lives in that area and is by, you know, the parks on either side or walking to Wellington, you know, So I'm very familiar with how that is. I know there's actually a lot of wildlife. I mean, I see coyotes crossing, you know, numerous times back and forth between the river and that area. And they always cut through the Bertucci's parking lot. So the way that I feel like this building, feel like this building is pretty much a wall between those two natural areas. And I, I certainly wish that there would be more of a kind of a green zone, at least some strips of connection that would permit, you know, animals to move forward so that they're, you know, back and forth, so that they're, you know, functional ecosystems. And And I think in general, again, being a parkway, I like the fact that you're keeping trees, you're adding a tree to the front. I wish there would be some more room for trees along the sides. So I guess thinking a little bit more about the massing and if you have any additional thoughts about that or ways of mitigating it would be certainly welcome to me and probably other board members.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I think Andre, that's a really good point, and I, and I, I want to just second that I, I feel like part of the issue may be the width and I think you said it right that like this building is coming very close to the sides. you're also going for a variance on, you know, a lot of the other metrics. So I, I got to think that there's a way to make the building a little less wide, and either, you know, taller or deeper or something like that, where, where you could you could make up that kind of square footage, but still get the sort of massing relief that I think the site merits. I know there's, you know, sort of bay widths and all that that you hold to in planning but I would think about that as well. Given that you know you're going for, you know, all these variances anyway I think, you know, if you could solve for some of the things that are most important as it as it relates to the, the way the building sits on the site I think that that could be important. I appreciate that.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. So unless actually I should invite, I don't think there are, but if there are any members of the public who would like to comment, I do want to give them the opportunity to speak. Amanda, I don't know if you have anybody.

[Amanda Centrella]: I don't yet, and maybe we'll just give a moment to folks, if anybody wants to raise their hands, there's the reaction button, or you could message. I'm just gonna check now for any emails, which we haven't received.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, why don't we give a couple of minutes in case members of the public do want to weigh in. And in the meantime, I know Commissioner Blake, you look like you were gonna say something a little while ago. Would you like to comment?

[Todd Blake]: So just quickly I want to mention to places comment and yours as well, regarding a plea to the board and the proponent please don't feel limited to my mitigation recommendation number two that suggested the concept of the bike lane in the shoulders with paint only. That was mostly a short midterm. you know solution to connect a lot of points that we're connecting in Medford for bicyclists. The long term vision could definitely be what places suggested so when, when, if and when it gets approved a condition to include that don't feel limited look at all the cross sections. I will say that on DCL parkways and mass dot roadways. elsewhere in the region for instance in Arlington is looking at a connection between mystic area and minimum. And, you know, it, there is, it's a longer process that would extend probably beyond the life of the approval process for this one project. So, so it usually starts with this feasibility study, then it goes into design after, you know, and then and then construction so. But that that could very well be the long term vision of both sides of Mr. Kelly Parkway as well just like what's going on in Arlington near the Mystic River to Minuteman area so. So just, yeah, that was all just don't feel limited by that suggestion. Open to any and all bicycle improvements in the area.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Commissioner. Thanks. One thing. One thing we haven't touched on that I will ask when we have a minute waiting. We haven't talked about noise and I'm wondering whether you could speak a little bit about that what might the noise levels be around this building. also getting back to that light issue. I think in terms of my comment about balancing that kind of density, that bringing people into the space with respecting the parkway and the natural areas around it, I don't know what's the best design solution, but if you could think about that a little bit more, I'm a little concerned about noise pollution and light pollution from the site.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, thank you. I think I cube three and Jacobs could probably take most of that. I know there is a lighting plan that was in place by MDLA. I'm not sure if no, I think they're still on here as well. So they could speak to that. And I think Jacobs could probably add a little bit more detail to the noise as well.

[SPEAKER_07]: So I'm happy to jump, I'm happy to jump in on noise. I mean, the beautiful thing about the, in the penthouses, the way that they're being accommodated is that they are, they are enclosed mechanical units rights and spaces so that those there's an, there's an ability to acoustically contain the mechanical equipment so that the noise transmission to the neighborhood should be minimized, very minimal. So as again, rather than having a lot of exposed mechanical equipment on the roof, it's behind an acoustical barrier. So, and, you know, in terms of the units themselves, they would all be rated to minimize any, you know, vibration or noise that would be, you know, audible within the neighborhood. So I think that's probably a, would be a limited, a very limited concern about noise and, you know, in terms of other activities on the ground floor, I can't think of anything, the loading dock is contained. So I think noise should not be an issue. And again, I'll defer to keep three on this, but in terms of site lighting design, obviously we'd be aware of the city of Medford standards and also kind of dark sky kind of criteria.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I think we'll be managing that closely as the design moves forward. I think again, objectives is not to illuminate the building but really reinforce the public realm. That's going to be the primary objective.

[SPEAKER_10]: This is Mike Rettenmayer from MDLA. We did provide a photometrics plan for the site lighting. So along the perimeter drive, we are including wall-mounted lights that are cut off so there's no spill over the property line along the perimeter, but that does safely eliminate any walkways the drive surface around the perimeter. And then for the entry plaza, we're including low-level bollard lights to illuminate some of that pedestrian circulation. And there's some decorative light poles that highlight the main circulation to the entry lobby and the cafe space, again, all safely illuminating that entire plaza. And then along the parkway, there's some existing Cobra head lighting that are not, we don't have that fact in our photometrics, but those are existing. And so, we're not messing with any of the light levels at the parkway, but providing appropriate lighting at our curb cuts and things like that.

[Andre Leroux]: Amanda, I don't see any comments or raised hands. Have you gotten anything?

[Alicia Hunt]: I have not.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, great. Well, hopefully this has provided a little bit of direction in terms of our interests and where you might be able to help us provide some more details about the project. We really appreciate you and your whole project team's time tonight. So thank you for that. I think I would entertain a motion to continue And I think we have to, Amanda, do we have a possible date?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so I apologize. I should have asked you guys ahead of time to vet a couple of dates, but I think maybe the first question I have will be for the proponent team. In general, what would allow for like enough time to kind of thoroughly respond to some of the feedback you heard tonight?

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, we can have responses drawn up as soon as you guys are ready to have another hearing. I don't think there's any concern with getting anything prepared for you guys, another presentation to answer some of these questions. So whatever time the board needs to kind of take this in and schedule another meeting, we'll be ready by then.

[Amanda Centrella]: Okay. So then I guess back to board members, would we,

[Andre Leroux]: Is, would we do two weeks or look further out? I mean, June 1st or 2nd?

[Alicia Hunt]: Andre, I am very not available June 1st. It's Medford High graduation and I have twins graduating. And Thursday's the rain date for it. So I hesitate. I know the board doesn't revolve around me, but theoretically I should be here.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I feel like we should, this should be more like three to four weeks out.

[Amanda Centrella]: So how about the following week starts June 6th is the Monday. How do folks feel about either, you know, we usually do Tuesdays or Wednesdays, or sorry, not Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. So that would be the, the 8th or the 9th?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: And it doesn't revolve around me either, Amanda, but Wednesdays are the days that are harder for me to get here.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I have a conflict that Wednesday as well, but Thursday the 9th would work.

[Amanda Centrella]: Does that work for others?

[Andre Leroux]: Do the 9th as well. Christy's nodding yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Great. I'm just going to check the city calendar on the fly here just to make sure that there's nothing glaring.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yep, I did the historic district commission is meeting that night so that's not a big deal for us, and there's a another group is having an interview party so great DNA said you could do it as well.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, it looks like everybody can then. Okay. All right, so I will entertain a motion to continue the hearing till Thursday, June 9th. Is there a motion on the floor?

[David Blumberg]: I'd like to make a motion to continue our hearing until June 9th at 6 p.m.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, is there a second?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I will second.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Klaas. Roll call vote. Christy Dowd?

[Jenny Graham]: Yes.

[Andre Leroux]: Klaas Andresen? Aye. Jackie Furtado?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.

[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg? Yes. Deanna Peabody?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: And I'm an aye as well. So the hearing is continued to Thursday, June 9th at 6 p.m. Thank you very much, everybody. Mr. Chair, members of the board, thank you so much.

[WpieqDvHvyY_SPEAKER_14]: Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Really appreciate your time. All right, next item on the agenda is just I think miscellaneous so I don't know if Amanda or Alicia you have anything you want to bring to our attention.

[Amanda Centrella]: this may sound like I'm repeating myself from last meeting, but the Great American Beer Hall community meeting was actually rescheduled to this Thursday at 5 p.m. It'll be virtual. This is for the site proposed for 142 Mystic Ave. Again, no obligation for board members to be there, but just wanted to put it on your radar, and we feel that this is a project that may be coming to us soon. Um. Wanted to mention that and. Just one other thing. I will send out an email this week, um, about, uh, collecting some signatures from folks for we have a couple of past minutes that can be signed off on and then. The Mylar's for the yeah, have that on your awareness.

[Andre Leroux]: So you'll send us like times we can come in by email, right? Yes. Yes. Great.

[Amanda Centrella]: Anything else, Alicia, that you wanted to throw in?

[Alicia Hunt]: I was just saying the things that are on my radar are around the comprehensive plan. And we just discussed that with this board. And so that I'll just say in case we haven't lost every single member of the public, that the comp plan consultants will be at Circle the Square on Saturday, June 18, to talk to people. The other fun thing, we're moving along for a Morrison Park redesign, and we were in the final stages and decided to go out for more public comment on swings. Anybody's passionate about swing layouts? Amanda is probably about, what time is it? Probably about 14 hours from sharing with the public a survey about the swing layout at Morrison Park before we move to

[Andre Leroux]: But you're going to say there was 14 hours of public comment on swing layout.

[Alicia Hunt]: No, we got the draft survey today and we were too busy prepping for this meeting to actually release that survey to the public, but it's a survey just about swings.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. And we don't have, Amanda or Alicia, we don't have a date, right, for the comp plan to be presented to this board. Is that right?

[Amanda Centrella]: Not yet, but I should get an email out to you guys and we can start scheduling for that.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. Are we thinking June or?

[Amanda Centrella]: Um, I guess it kind of depends a bit on how like at what phase and I have to refer back to my notes because I feel like we talked about this last meeting, so I apologize. Um, like if you guys want to be hearing about kind of nearly finished draft version of the plan versus like Finished draft, which would be later in the summer.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think we said they wanted to hear earlier. Okay. Um, rather than at the very end. And that was the idea, was to weigh in sooner. I will apologize. I have been keeping Amanda super busy with projects that she hasn't reached out about that yet.

[Andre Leroux]: I just was curious so that the members know we're in the timeline where we're talking. Okay, we'll expect an email about that. And I know, well, David, is this about that? Because I know Jackie had her hand up too, was gonna speak. Jackie first please.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: So I just wanted to clarify the Bear Hall project meeting, the community meeting is that at the same time as the steering committee meeting this Thursday. It's at 5pm so it's a little earlier. Okay, so that's it. Okay, thank you.

[David Blumberg]: A couple items, one rules and regs I think we do need to approve rules and regs. And I think we've gotten very close to it, looking at the ordinance briefly today in preparation for this meeting. I think it even says we shall adopt them so probably incumbent on us to do that. I know it's not a headliner of an item but didn't want to lose sight of it. Second thing, along the similar lines, the vacancy on the board, and the associate member of the board, and maybe third in a three part question, the extension of some of the terms of current board members.

[Amanda Centrella]: So I can take the, we had a conversation about a couple of candidates for, sorry, for the current vacancy, and those folks have gone to the mayor for kind of, we're gonna do an initial vetting and then bring her in. So hoping to have news for you guys soon on that front. And in terms of extensions for existing members, maybe, I don't know if that's, if we should maybe talk offline to folks whose terms are coming up just about kind of, yeah, like where their interest in availability is there and what expectations are. So definitely can get that going.

[David Blumberg]: And will the city move forward filling the associate member role the newly created one by way of the ordinance? Is that also on the on your hit list? If you said it, I didn't hear it. I'm sorry.

[Amanda Centrella]: No, that's okay. It's I think that will could be a conversation moving forward. I wanna say that our priority right now is to fill the current vacancy and to have an understanding of, I think there are two member terms, so Andre and Deanna that are coming up that will, yeah, need to take precedent. Um, but if the board has ideas or preferences on kind of prioritizing, feel free to let me know. We will be doing a push out for these various seats. or they've already been pushed out, but we'll continue to do so. And we're hoping that we'll get, as a result, continue to get candidates and applications, and so can have an eye as we're going through those to a potential associate member.

[Andre Leroux]: And I think there are some good potential candidates, but if there are other folks that any of you know who you think would be good, you can still encourage them to apply. Be good to have as big a pool as possible.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, in fact, if it's of interest, I could send, there's like a small blurb that the city's put out for promotion of the vacant seat now that would be used for any vacant seats that come up. So I could share that with the board and you should feel free to circulate within your networks as well.

[Andre Leroux]: That'd be great.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Andre I quickly, I realized I, I've spoken to Alicia and the mayor about this but um, so I was reappointed by the governor, as of March 3, actually as of February so I have a new three year extension until 2025 and I was sworn in on March 3, and I just realized I neglected to share that with the board.

[Andre Leroux]: Right, thank you. Congratulations.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. I just wanted to clarify in the calendar because there was something I think there was some confusion. The comprehensive plan steering committee Jackie's meeting Wednesday. A Wednesday. Okay. Thank you. The great American beer hall is Thursday at five. There's also, um, I think I'd mentioned to you all that the MBTA bus routes that that network. Um, so they actually released the draft network. There's a meeting Thursday night for the public, the greater boss. It's not a Medford specific meeting. Um, and those bus routes, the drafts are now out there. They really need people to comment on them. I highly encourage people to look at it. The interactive map is pretty, it's pretty helpful, I think, because you can like hover over a route and it'll highlight the route for you so you can see them. I am actually gonna forward this specific, Amanda, it's much easier for me. Can I send it to you and you send it to the board? Because Amanda has you all as a shortcut and I would have to go find. Go ahead. So an email went out today about this. That is the map, the remix map, a network planning tool, a static map. And then there are ways that you can provide feedback, including they have an online feedback form in many languages. They have a phone number and you can email written, you can mail written comments. And then there's going to be some meetings. The one this Thursday is a system-wide meeting. there's gonna be one that includes Medford that is considered the, that's actually the inner core meeting on June 16th. However, Medford's in a weird place relative to the MBTA. This is in the message, but when you look at the names of the meetings, the one that's Mystic River and North Shore doesn't mention Medford. It's kind of more our neighbors to the north. But there's a lot of overlap. And then there's one Minuteman in Metro North that's sort of our neighbors to the west, like Arlington Winchester, but it includes overlap with Medford. So there are a bunch of meetings, you just want to look at this stuff yourself.

[Andre Leroux]: But I encourage you- I dropped in the link into the chat.

[Alicia Hunt]: Great. It's a really I can't stress enough the need to really hear from people about this. Todd and I can't just speak for the whole community on this, although we've given them some feedback. But we really need to hear how this will really impact people.

[David Blumberg]: We lost bus routes with the pandemic and they haven't come back.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right. I will tell you that the one that we've talked to them. Well we've talked to them about a number of routes. There was one that we've talked a lot about it is 710 the one that used to go through North Medford, and they had been running a shuttle basically what they've based, they've said is the MBT. buses are too big for Fulton Heights. So this new proposal has bus routes on either side on Elm and Highland and Fellsway and not one up through the middle. And what we need to keep pushing for is a smaller physical bus and that's not in their model right now. to go in the middle of that. The others are the express buses and that's something that they're kind of presenting is that they're creating a lot of what they consider rapid transit buses, where they're going to run more often than every 15 minutes and Medford's going to get a couple of those. So they're not planning to bring down back the routes that just shoot down the highway to Haymarket. But there's actually one that goes every 15 minutes from Medford Square through Sullivan Square to Kendall Square, which is an interesting change. And they're sort of saying, if you're going to downtown Boston, you should take one of the many routes that'll go to Wellington and then hop on the Orange Line into downtown Boston. That's kind of been their answer to us on that.

[Andre Leroux]: So we shouldn't, let's, I know it's been already kind of late and I think we encourage everybody to go to the website and check it out. And I think we will accept a motion to adjourn. We, I think we already lost class. I think he thought we were done.

[David Blumberg]: Andre and Steven, I'll make a motion to adjourn.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Is there a second?

[Deanna Peabody]: I'll second, Deanna.

[Andre Leroux]: Thanks, Deanna. Roll call vote. David Blumberg. Aye. Jackie Furtado.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Deanna Peabody.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Christy Dowd.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Aye as well. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everybody, for all your time.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Thank you. Thanks, everyone.

[Andre Leroux]: Have a good night. Victor, hope you feel better.

Jenny Graham total time: 2.36 minutes total words: 161