[Jenny Graham]: Get started because we have a lot to do tonight. So I will read the meeting notice. Please be advised that there will be a full committee meeting with the Medford Comprehensive High School Building Committee in person at the Medford High School Library at 489 Winthrop Street and there will be a remote participation also. The meeting can be viewed live on the Medford Public Schools YouTube channel, through Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, which is Comcast 9, 8, or 22, and Verizon 43, 45, or 47. The meeting will be recorded. Participants can log or call in by using the following Zoom information. The Zoom meeting ID is 986-585-28899. Okay, I'm gonna start by calling the roll. Jenny Graham here. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Present.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Present. Mardika Bral. Present. Joan Bowen. Absent. Ken Lord.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown. Here. Marissa Desmond. Maria Dorsey here. Brian Hilliard here. Emily Lazzaro here. Paul Malone is absent. Nicole Morell is absent. Erin Lopate here. Susan Preissner here. Bob Dickinson here.
[Libby Brown]: Fiona Maxwell here. Hi Fiona. How are you? Dr. Talbot? Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Will Pepicelli? Here. Lori Cochran? Here. Abby Laughlin? Absent. Paul Rousseau? Present. Phil Santos?
[Unidentified]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Lisa Miller? Here.
[Libby Brown]: So we have 11 present or absent in the quorum. So we will proceed.
[Jenny Graham]: Welcome, everyone. We're gonna start by trying to get some of the like sort of simple things out of the way and try to leave the meat of the time that we have together for SMMA to do their presentation. So there's two sets of minutes on our approval of meeting minutes, January 14th, which was our last full committee meeting, and then January 28th, our communications and community engagements subcommittee meeting. Is there a motion to approve? By Aaron, is there a second? Second. By Libby. Jenny Graham. I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Joan Bone is absent. Ken Lord. Yes. Liddy Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond is absent. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Emily Lazzaro. Yes. Paul Malone is absent. Nicole Morales absent. Aaron Olapade. Yes. And Luke Preissner.
[Luke Preisner]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: 11 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, or absent, the minutes are approved. The next thing I wanted to just call your attention to, you all have a copy of this in your email as well, but we have the Communications and Community Engagement Subcommittee met on the 28th, so the minutes are there. The meeting is posted to YouTube as well, if anyone wants to go back and watch. But in that meeting, what we did in collaboration the communications team here at MPS and the communications team at City Hall is we did a couple of things. So one we talked about how to make sure that people know how to plug in and be involved if they want to plug in and be involved and came up with a series of plans to do so. And then we also talked a bit about the upcoming meetings and anything sort of special or in addition that we needed to be thinking about, about those meetings. And we also did like a kind of traditional stakeholder analysis that talks about the different audiences we're trying to reach to make sure that we have everyone. So this document is the result of that meeting. Actually, Matt, if you could scroll up to the topic, I know in the room, you won't be able to read this, but on Zoom, they should be able to read it. A couple of things for context. So about this document basically says that We created, created, reviewed and approved this during our subcommittee meeting. There is a link to the video and it talks about both our current and in progress communication plans to inform residents of all the meaningful work of the committee and the status of the project as it unfolds. The plan right now is intended to cover the feasibility phase, which is through June. And then the idea is that we will evolve and update this sort of as we need to as phases shift and the sort of the needs of the meetings change. Overall, the goal is to ensure that all residents who want to follow the project or provide input know when and how to do that. A couple of things I wanted to call out because I don't think we need to like dive deep into the tables, but some of the coming attractions just to give you a flavor of how we're going to do that. We are launching a mailing list so that residents who may or may not receive the superintendent's weekly email can tell us that they're interested in being on a mailing list. That mailing list will do a couple of things. It will allow us to send meeting invitation notices to our meetings once they're publicly posted. It will allow us also to that email list include people who may not otherwise get the superintendent's update where there are regular updates about what the building committee is doing. And then if there's other special communications reminders, things like that, that would go to that mail list. So in general, if you are getting the superintendent's information, there's no, probably no need to sign up again, but the goal is more to like cast a wider net than just those folks who get the superintendent's email. In the document that you received is a hyperlink to that sign up list. So you can go in and sign up, please encourage people to do the same. And over the course of the next like couple of weeks, we'll be pushing that out in various in various ways so that the list can keep growing. We did talk about providing regular dedicated space in the mayor's monthly newsletter for updates about the project and what the coming attractions are. So we'll be providing an update to that to the mayor's office so that it can be included coming up. We also are working on a series of flyers that will have QR codes on them and like high traffic locations like the library, maybe the police department, City Hall, et cetera, that would point people to two things. One is the project website where all the information lives and breathes. And the other is to the mailing list sign up. So the idea is that those kinds of posters out in businesses, et cetera, would point people back into the flow of where the information is rather than creating a whole bunch of separate and disparate information streams. We are also doing some cost estimating of a citywide mailer so that, again, we can make sure that we reach all residents. And if that is prohibitive in some way, the sort of alternative that we have is to tag on to the quarterly water bills that go out, which we can do probably less expensively because those water bills are going out anyway. However, water bills go to homeowners and likely leave out a big portion of our residents who are renters. that it's very likely that they don't get or see anything that comes in the water bill. And that's near I think nearly half of our half of our residents are renters. So we want to make sure that we're reaching them as well. So more to come on this way that will go. We'll also be sending a robocall citywide so that people know about the mailing list so that they know how to sign up so that they can again get into the fold and understand what's coming. And then a couple of other things that we are working on, Matt and I have been working on some micro videos. I will say that neither of us were like destined for television. I probably blink a lot when I'm on camera. I don't know if I do that in person, but I'm very, very aware now that I'm doing that. But what we did was we sort of took three of the three common topics and did a little bit of Q&A about those topics in short bursts. So they're like three minute-ish videos. We'll be releasing them over the course of the week. And the idea is that there are a lot of things people believe about the space in this building that are just simply not true. And they are like long-held beliefs. And we're trying to make sure that people have the facts. So those three videos, be on the lookout. They'll be posted to social media. We'll put them on the project page. will actually work to get them loaded to Medford Community Media so they can air on the station as well. And our vocational students did all the filming and editing and they did a lovely job and they asked us like the hardest questions. So they were great and they're excited to do that again. So I think our idea is that we'll do that on some increment where there are questions coming up that would be useful for video as a format for people who prefer that. And then I think that the final thing sort of incoming attractions is we did talk about exploring some sort of like meet the architect lunch and learn at the senior center so that we are encouraging our senior population to engage with this project as well. So we have to do, we have some work to do to get connected to the senior center and make plans for that. So those are some of like the big things that I'll say are new. That's in addition to the project website that's already there, all the meetings, are posted. The YouTube videos live on the MPS YouTube channel, so you can go watch them at any time. And all of the upcoming meetings that are happening. As you continue scrolling through the document, there is a series of meetings. These are all of the meetings that we have planned and scheduled, really through the end of the feasibility phase at the end of June. what we tried to do was give people some sort of idea of what we believe the purpose of these meetings will be. And there are some meetings that are informational, information sharing, nothing, no vote, no big vote expected versus meetings where it's like, no, on this day, we will actually be asked to do something very specific. And then just any sort of information we had about what our plans are for communicating outside of applying with the open meeting law, posting those, things with 48 hours notice, posting to social media, et cetera. So I think part of the thought about this mailer is because we do have a clear line of sight about what these meetings are that have to happen, even those dates can go into the mailer if we can fit a lot of information on one page. So that's like the next section of this document is really a description and readout of all of those meetings. that are happening and what we believe the plans are at each of them. There is a placeholder on page three that says May school events. If you know about May in schools, you know that there are like four million events that happen between the beginning of May and really like the close of school, but those first weeks in June. So one of the things that the district administrative team is doing is looking at that calendar sort of as it sits and trying to figure out like where are the places where having an informational table about where the project is at and what's going on would meet people where they are in addition to like the kinds of conversations that are happening in these meetings. and so more to come on when what those events will be but as we you know as we get them we'll put them on the calendar but the idea is like if there's a fan concert should we have a table in the foyer if there's a moving on ceremony is that the right place so we'll go through like all of those things and say like you know where are the right places for the team to be there with their like little models and pictures and posters and all those things so that people who may not be engaging with us in this way also can feel like they know what's going on with the project. And then below that is the table of all the audience and stakeholders that we talked about in the meeting. And there's quite an extensive list here. There's a lot of repetition in terms of what people are interested in. And what we tried to do as best we could was identify where there are places where we're still unfolding information. So for example, best ways to reach our students is sort of a different answer for our high school students than it is for middle and elementary students. And so the project team is doing some work to recall how they have done that kind of engagement with students, particularly our youngest students and other projects so that we can model after what has worked in other districts. So there's a handful of TBDs and that's why this will continue to evolve. And, you know, it's, quite an extensive list. And there's some outreach that will happen, you know, like I said to the Council on Aging, we're talking about how to tap the MHS alumni group, which I think is kind of a loose group, but trying to like get some lists together. And then also we'll be talking in the future about community partners and businesses who might be willing to host a flyer about the project, or lend some other support and how we can like connect to some of the advisory meetings that um, Chad has about, um, CTE advisory and things like that. So all in all, we are really trying to say, like, we want everybody to know and choose about how they want to engage in this project. Um, and to make sure that people know, like when important things are happening, when important votes are happening in that thing. Um, any questions about this communications plan? Aaron?
[Aaron Olapade]: Just a quick question about the stakeholder groups that were communicated with and got a vibe check. Was that the same outreach team every time or did it vary depending on the group, the stakeholder group and kind of the expertise?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, there's probably, it's probably both. For example, our residents who need translation services, like their primary conduit is going to be our community liaisons under Catherine. So they, you may recall that we had some translators here In addition to that, her office has community liaisons that have active pathways to various communities that they support. So those are things where we may push something to them and ask them to do the communication so that the folks who rely on them can access the information as well. I think in general, the communication will all be centrally drafted out of the project team. but we may ask different people to support that where it makes sense.
[Libby Brown]: Other questions?
[Jenny Graham]: Okay, so before we go on, I just want to, usually when a subcommittee provides a recommendation, which is what this is, so the subcommittee has approved this, and we typically will ask the larger body to take a vote to approve. So is there a motion to approve this communication plan?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So moved.
[Jenny Graham]: I think Ken beat you. So by Ken, seconded by Mayor Lungo-Koehn, I will call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Pelosi. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Joan Bonas absent. Ken Lord. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond is absent. Ray Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Emily Lazzaro. Yes. Pamela is absent. Nicole Morell absent. Aaron Olapade.
[Luke Preisner]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Luke Preissner. Yes. 11 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, four absent. The communications plan draft is no longer draft. Thanks. I'm going to turn it over to Matt to take us through items four and five. Item four is our January 2026 invoices, and item five is a proposed amendment from left field. So Matt, if you want to take it away.
[Matt Gulino]: Sure. Yeah. So these are the invoices for January of 26. Left field's approved lump sum amount of $20,000, SMMA's A&E feasibility study lump sum of $90,000, and then we have this month completed $31,900 worth of environmental insight. And that was Brennan Consulting and ADS Environmental, who are the geotechnical and geoenvironmental consultants. And if you want to go to the next page, this just gives a quick snapshot of the overall budget. left column of numbers is the current feasibility study budget, which is a total of $3 million. We have committed $2,644,938 and have spent, including these invoices, $441,900. So still a long way to go, still a lot of budget to build. We still have not committed all of all of the budget yet as well, which is great. But those are the invoices for this month, which are from January of 26. Total invoice value is $141,900. Any questions about the invoices? Yeah. So if we go back a slide.
[Luke Preisner]: Can you just remind us all of our eligible reimbursement rate for the $3 million number? MSBA is going to reimburse some portion of the costs. Can you confirm that these costs are all eligible? And then state the reimbursement rate, because I'm not certain.
[Matt Gulino]: Sure, yeah. The reimbursement rate is 54.37%. We have submitted pro-pay reimbursements already, so we'll follow up on that and see when that reimbursement funding will start coming from the MSBA. But we'll continue to submit monthly and get that kind of constant reimbursement flow going now that we're a couple of months into the project.
[Jenny Graham]: And as a reminder, the MSBA required that the City of Medford allocate the full cost, the full total of the feasibility study before we were invited to the feasibility phase. So that $3 million includes what's money that will ultimately be reimbursed by MSBA. So that's not $3 million of our money. That's $3 million total cost of feasibility. Yes. I just wanted to say that for the larger group so that nobody's thinking there's like two different numbers.
[Matt Gulino]: Yep. Any other questions?
[Jenny Graham]: Is there a motion to approve the invoices? I can, seconded by Luke. I will call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galuski. Yes. Martika Braugh. Yes. Sam Goins, absent. Ken Lord. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa is absent. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Emily Lazzaro. Yes. Paul Malone is absent. Nicole absent. Aaron Olapade.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Ruth Krasner. Yes. 11 in the affirmative, zero in the negative. or absent, the invoices are approved. Matt?
[Matt Gulino]: All right. The last administrative item that we have is Leftfield's First Amendment. And this amendment is for estimating services for the first two phases of the project, the preliminary design program, which has already been completed, and then the preferred schematic report, which is the next phase starting in March. So the breakout between the two phases, it was 6,000. for the PDP and 10,000 for the PSR phase, with a 10% markup from left field for a total of 17,600. Again, this is not an increase to the overall budget. This is transferring money from that other category, which is the technical term, into the other line items, in this case, the OPM. contract so that we can procure those services. So again, that $3 million budget that we were just looking at remains the same. It's just kind of a reallocation of funds for specifically estimating services.
[Libby Brown]: Any questions about the proposed amendment? This is for you to get your estimators of alongside the estimates that SMMA has?
[Matt Gulino]: Correct, yes, because we perform two independent estimates, one through SMMA, and then left field hires one independently as well. So they were getting two inputs on the documents.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke? So Matt, it wasn't clear to me, so please clarify. Is this back billing for work performed, or is it a, let's see, a proposal for future work? So this is
[Matt Gulino]: really the proposal for the PDP and PSR phase. I made a mistake at the last meeting and didn't include this on the agenda. So we realistically would have approved it last month for the services that occurred at the end of January. So that was an administrative hiccup on my part, but yes, typically this is for future work. So the remaining budget that we will need to build for the PSR phase Um, is included in this as well.
[Luke Preisner]: I'm still confused. So, um, is this a bill for work already performed that should have proposed last meeting?
[Matt Gulino]: No, this is this is strictly to increase the contract. This is strictly to increase the contract amendment amendment, and then we'll bill towards the approved amounts.
[Jenny Graham]: But it's both. There's some work that's already been performed and some work yet to be performed because the estimating work has already begun.
[Luke Preisner]: So under the structure of the contract, until the contract is termed or concluded, your performance expires. We run an exposure to, I'll say, unplanned costs that we're responsible for. Is that a true statement? Yes. OK. Yeah. There's a scope of work. So we could potentially exceed the $3 million on the, I guess, yeah, we could exceed the $3 million without approving the exceedance before the work was done? No. We can't. Okay, good. I just want to sort of establish how hard that cap is.
[Matt Gulino]: Yeah. Yeah. And again, this is, this is not an invoice approval. We will get a formal invoice from the estimators to bill towards this amendment.
[Jenny Graham]: Any other questions about the amendments?
[Libby Brown]: Is there a motion to approve?
[Aaron Olapade]: Motion to approve.
[Libby Brown]: Aye, Aaron. Seconded by?
[Jenny Graham]: Second. Dr. Galusi. I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Longo's current?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi? Yes. Marta Cabral? Yes. Joan Gordon is absent. Ken Lord? Yes. Libby Brown? Yes. Morris is absent. Maria? Yes. Brian Hilliard? Yes. Emily Lazzaro? Yes. Paul is absent. Nicole is absent. Aaron Olapade?
[John Falco]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Lou Freisner? Yes. 14 in the affirmative. Sorry. 11 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, four absent. The amendment is approved. Okay, so we're gonna move on to the next item on the agenda, which is just a summary of some of the reactions to the alternatives that we viewed in our last meeting. So both the reactions from those who were here with us in person, as well as those who were with us on the men's meter.
[John Falco]: Skip forward a bit. area.
[Kimberly Talbot]: So most of you recall, or those that weren't here, or even online on the 14th, we did conduct a sort of thumbs up, thumbs down voting, both in person on the large sheets of paper. And again, understanding that these are very early days, very early concepts, but really just to get a gut check of, you know, what had appeal to this group. So this was the, in fact, the actual dot placement exercise. Color had no bearing. It's just a dot was a vote. And then go to the next slide. We also had input from the Amenta meter, the app that allowed people to do the thumbs up, thumbs down. And I highlighted ones that have garnered sort of greater votes. And this is a compilation of both the dots and the Mentimeter. So you can see, you know, again, just information where people's preferences are leaning at this point in time. And it's just, it's kind of a good bit of information to have as we move forward and really dig into evaluating all the options.
[Libby Brown]: Any questions about the recap? This is a factor in at all to what the estimators are doing. They're just pricing overall with 20 something options. All right.
[Jenny Graham]: The next item on the agenda is just a quick review of the PDP submission status. Our PDP is due to the MSBA on the 25th of February. There's three big things in laypeople's terms that are required in there. One is the educational plan. It is approved by the school committee, which is the authority that has to approve the educational plan. and pending any sort of non-substantive changes that have to get made as we're taking and tying on with these documents. So we're all set there. And there's two other pieces. We're going to talk about both of them tonight. One is the space summary review, which is a pretty detailed look at every existing space in the building, as well as what spaces are needed to meet the educational plan as we go forward. And so we'll go through that. I think we saw some high level information about that last time. But I know that I know that you all received from me a copy of the detailed spreadsheet, as well as the narrative that goes with that that will ultimately be submitted to the MSBA. And then the third thing that we are tracking toward that we are required to submit by the MSBA is cost information for the alternatives that we looked at at our last meeting. So we are required to tell the MSBA sort of the full scope of what we are looking at and where those numbers are sitting as of the submission of the PDP. So that's sort of where we are against the PDP plan. And we have another meeting scheduled on the 23rd of February where we will be approving those documents to go in. I'm going to turn it over to Helen and Matt so that they can take us through in some more detail the space summary and the recap, and we'll do questions once they're done.
[Matt Rice]: I think we're actually going to hand it over to Rosemary, who's online with us this evening, just to walk through the space summary pieces up front.
[Rosemary Park]: Hi, good evening. Sorry I can't be there in person with you all, but I'm currently just getting over something, so I wanted to spare all of you from it. And so as Jenny said, you received summary of spaces and some of the other detailed documents that explains kind of the justification reasoning for some of these programs and where they maybe were different from the MSBA or from MSBA guidelines. So, you know, the space summary, a really critical part of the cost estimate because it does generate that overall gross square footage that these costs at this early in the phase, in the project, since that's based on mostly a cost per square foot basis. So as you saw through those documents, there are a lot of line items. And so while we're not gonna review every single line item tonight, because we don't have enough time. That would take forever. We just wanted to provide a real general overview before getting to the meat of the review of the costs. So here on this slide, we just wanted to highlight a couple of the few key program areas to show you how the proposed MHS programs compared to the MSBA or DESE guidelines. So with general ed classrooms, we've mentioned it before, but they are being planned at the upper limit of the MSBA guidelines at 950 square feet to align with the district's educational goals and then also the policy on class sizes. So MSBA allows between They suggest between 825 square feet to 950 square feet. And based off of the educational vision, we are proposing that higher end. For the science labs, science labs will be meeting the MSBA and NSTA recommendations for lab sizes. The special education spaces are aligned with the MSBA recommendations for the sizing and dedicated toilet rooms, as well as some small group rooms and resource rooms. And I just wanted to point out here that because the special education programs are uniquely tailored to the needs of each school and each district, the MSBA looks to DESE, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, for the review and approval of all of the special ed program spaces. And so typically MSBA will reimburse for 100% of these spaces. And when that happens in the process, we'll update this when approved by Jesse. I see that there is a question. I don't know if we wanna pause for questions now or get through.
[Jenny Graham]: Why don't you finish your presentation and then we can do questions. Okay, at the end.
[Rosemary Park]: Okay, great. So we know that the existing gym is larger, considerably larger than what the MSBA will allow. And so in the addition renovation schemes, we are proposing keeping and renovating the existing gym, while the new construction schemes propose an entirely new gym, which would be the maximum size of 18,000 square feet. And then Another program item to highlight is that the proposed auditorium is going to be 10,000 square feet with a seating capacity for 1,000 people. And while the MSBA will reimburse up to a maximum of 7,500 square feet for auditoriums, they'll still participate in a building project that has an auditorium of 10,000 square feet.
[Libby Brown]: Next, please.
[Rosemary Park]: Um, so I mean, at this point, you're all familiar with this chart. Um, and, uh, but this is where, where the PDP, um, space summary is currently, um, for our submission to the MSBA. And so we'll, we have two slides, um, one for the addition renovation space summary, and then one for a new construction space summary, uh, which you should have received both, um, in your packet. Um, and so, uh, you know, across the top, you can see that we're comparing the existing building square footages, the proposed square footages, and then the MSBA DESI guidelines for footages. Please note that all of those numbers above are showing the net square footage, which the net floor area is, you know, all of the programmed and occupied spaces. Um and so where I would like us to kind of focus in on are the last few rows down at the bottom. Um just so that we can understand the total the total overall building square footages. So we've already talked about about what the net floor area is. So we've got the total building net floor area. Um and so you can see the comparisons here where we are with the proposed. Um underneath that, we've got the non-programmed spaces. And so that is all of the space that's the rest of the building. So it includes the wall thicknesses, corridor stairs, mechanical rooms, other building support spaces like toilet rooms. And so this is calculated by multiplying the net floor area by a 1.5 grossing factor, which you can see at the very bottom of the sheet. And that 1.5 number is, recommended or required by the MSBA to include in our buildings. So 1.5 is the standard grossing factor for any of the schools. And we get to that total gross floor area, that total GFA, which has been used to help price different alternatives at this early stage. Um. And then if you go to the next. Um so I should have pointed out that sorry, um, in in the those the schemes that followed that space summary proposed all new construction except for when it came to the gym and the pool. So in the addition renovation schemes under health and PE and then a little bit under other spaces, we're proposing to renovate the existing gym alternate PE spaces. And then under other spaces is where the pool would be the existing pool would be renovated as well. And so when we now move to the all new construction, so in this scheme, everything is new, including the new gym and a new pool. And as we pointed out earlier, because the existing gym is much larger than what the MSBA guidelines recommend, the square footage of the total building gross floor area is actually smaller in the all new construction than it would be in the additional renovation. So, you know, we're architects, we like pretty images to explain all the charts and all the data. So the slide, you've seen versions of this before. You may notice the new colors. We've been updating some colors in our floor plans. So, you know, the slide is illustrating the program area comparisons across the existing building, the proposed renovation addition scheme, and then also the proposed new construction scheme. So the colors represent all of the different program categories that make up the net floor area. and the white hatched bar towards the end of each of those bars, those represent the non-occupied spaces that were calculated from the grossing factor. And so from existing two proposed, you can see the increased program areas, you know, primarily in special education, the CT Chapter 74 programs, and then in the other categories, mostly due to the inclusion expansion of the Early Childhood Center, Um, and then if you look between the renovation addition scheme and the new construction scheme. You can see, um, where the differences are. Is in that dark orange health and P area. And so that's again due to the smaller gym being proposed in the new construction scheme. know, I said that one of the reasons we couldn't go through each line item of that space summary was because it was just going to take way too long to go through all of that. So, you know, one way that we can show it to you easily on one sheet is through this diagram, which represents, it's a visual representation of the space summary. So each space is scaled relative to each other. So you can see the quantities and the sizes of spaces for each program category. What I do wanna point out is this is just strictly just a space inventory. It does not reflect any of the space adjacencies that we've talked about or layout or any kind of design intent. It is strictly just to show you the inventory of spaces and allows you to understand like just how many spaces are going into this program. And so that's it for the space summary. If there are any questions, I'm happy to take them now.
[Libby Brown]: Mayor, I think you had your hand up. Did you have a question?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Thank you. In general, from the slide you had on comparing existing to MSBA guidelines, just the wording proposed square footage for general classrooms is upper limit of SBA guidelines. So that's just like one category I think of the building we're proposing. My question is, I thought we were proposing spaces to be the requirements of the SBA versus there being a upper and lower limit, just because I know the pricing to such a massive building is going to be pretty extensive. So if I could get an explanation on that piece specifically.
[Rosemary Park]: Okay. Well, so the MSBA has, again, that range of square footages that they have for the classrooms between 825 square feet and 950 square feet. So they provide that range because that's what the MSBA will reimburse They don't want you to go any below 825 because then it's not really enough space for the general classroom. And they don't want you to go above 950 because they won't reimburse for that.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So the proposals we got at the last meeting, were those for the 825? No. Those are for the 950? Yes, since we've started looking at
[Rosemary Park]: the spaces overall, any proposed space, we've been looking at 950 square feet to start with.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So then assuming for just classroom space, we're looking at the upper level, then I'm assuming whatever we talked about last month and what we got pricing for was upper level for every category.
[Kimberly Talbot]: I think it's fair to say that this is the only category where they prescribe and tell me if I'm wrong. This is the range that we recommend for a typical classroom size. And given the educational program and the visioning work that was done with the district, because of the co-teaching model and the desire to go towards classrooms that have multiple teachers in them and more collaborative work, it made sense to propose the larger size within that range. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: But I'm not just asking about classrooms. So for example, the auditorium, they will reimburse us for 750 seats, but for every option we priced or asked to price, which I think was in the 29 range last meeting, which I think you're going to give pricing for tonight, we are asking for 1,000 seats, so 250 of which will be completely 100% paid for by our taxpayers. So my question isn't just about classroom size. My question is about every single space and the maximum and minimums because I want to compare it to what we're asking the taxpayers to pay with 53.37% reimbursable versus what we're asking the taxpayers to pay 100%.
[Jenny Graham]: So can I ask Dr. Delucida to just chime in about classroom sizes?
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yes, I do want to just, and I hope I don't like take too long, I actually could spend a lot of time talking about this, but we have spent a tremendous amount of time also talking about how we are educating our students and Education has changed dramatically since this building was built. And so if you were to just go into any of our classrooms, the size, the space, the layout, furniture, it's really not conducive to the way we educate students today. It's as Helen was talking about, there's co-teaching methods where you have a number of staff in there, but we also have We want students to be in collaborative spaces where they're learning amongst their peers and they're able to engage in that discourse. We're no longer educating students by just sitting in rows and giving direct delivery. We need spaces where students can spread out, engage in project-based learning, work with their peers, maybe also work individually, but on learning that's important to them. Right now for our CBA, most classes have a class limit of 25 students. Science rooms are 24. So in order to make sure that we're meeting our class size requirements per the CBA, as well as having those spaces to educate students the way they deserve. we need to be maximizing the space. I also would just say that one thing that this building also lacks is community space. So the principal is here and she can like add on if she would like to, but right now she really does not have any space to gather large groups of students in any sort of school assembly by grade, by multiple grades or by the entire building. It would have to be in the gymnasium. which also acoustically or depending on what you want to do there is not always conducive to like an academic environment where you can gather large groups of students for community type spaces. And in addition to that, I would just have to say that one of the wonderful things I do appreciate about Medford is their commitment to the arts. And for as small and in disrepair that theater is that we have, it is very well used. We have community theater groups as well as our own thriving Medford High School theater group that really deserves to be in a better space for their performances.
[Jenny Graham]: And Mayor, I think to answer your question, no, not all spaces were at the MSBA Max. Many of them were for this initial estimate for the 29 options. But part of what we have to do is get our PDP submission in so that we can start to collaborate and engage with MSBA. As we talk about going forward, there will be other parts of things as we narrow down to a handful of options. There are lots of opportunities to continue discussion about the size of various spaces. I know we are engaged in a conversation about Medford Community Media, for example, and the space that they need right now. These numbers will all include them having their own unique space. I don't think that's actually what will happen in the end based on our early conversations, but we have to start with the biggest top of the funnel so that we're not missing anything as we sort of narrow in. So all of that is to come, but the goal here is to say to the MSBA, like, here is what we are investigating, and here is why we are investigating these things, and here is where we are. So this is like a status report to the MSBA so that we can start having discussions. And when we talk about what they will and will pay for, a lot of that comes much, much further down the line. It is not as easy as saying it's X percent. It's substantially more complicated than that. So we have to just have to hold that part of the conversation until we can have some more actual dialogue with MSBA about the specifics of this project.
[Luke Preisner]: I have a question. Luke? So a statement and a question. I want to state and I want to express that I'm deeply concerned about the size of the I've looked at all schools that have been constructed since the MSBA has taken ownership and stewardship of sort of building construction or construction management in the state. I've been doing it for 20 years and 640 will be the biggest school in Massachusetts, possibly the United States, I'm not sure, but definitely Massachusetts. There's one school that is very big in Lowell, 622, but the enrollment there is much larger. And so I'm deeply concerned about how big this is getting because size is a direct proxy for cost. And I know we'll see some cost numbers and I'll wait to see what they are and kind of the formulations and the models used. I think it'll be informative, but I also know what schools have cost in the past, and you can draw lines and make estimates, and it's what it is. But size is a direct proxy for cost. So if we're gonna have the biggest school in terms of size, it's possible that the cost will be in a similar category for 1,395 schools. So I just wanna express that deep concern. I will have other questions, but I just want to know, I want everyone to know kind of where I stand. My question to SMMA has to do with a topic Jenny touched on, so perhaps it's already been answered, but I'll ask it. We know our reimbursement rate. We know what's being proposed in terms of sizes for the different space summary categories. All of that's available in a spreadsheet that's in the draft PDP, has SMMA identified what percentage of the proposed for the two concepts, so new and ad reno, what percentage of the proposed is MSBA reimbursable, just in the reimbursable category and report it as percentage. I mean, we see the numbers, but that's a lot of math and no one's gonna agree with it. But if we see percentages, it's easier.
[Matt Gulino]: So that's the question. The answer on projecting MSBA reimbursement right now is no. With 29 options, trying to figure out MSBA reimbursement on every single one of those, because they are all different depending on the type of option. You get additional reimbursement points for renovating portions of buildings. Um, you know, the larger buildings are a little bit smaller because of the gym size, uh, like where was Mary was talking about. So there's just a lot of different. Uh, nuances that go into the MSBA calculation that, that we have not done them yet. Um, it's not common for us to do them at this phase, given how high level we're talking. Once we start to get into the preferred schematic report and we get down and then our, our options down, do another round of estimating. you know, we can start to talk about, you know, potential reimbursement of those options, but where we are right now is just not something that we have done and honestly would not recommend doing just because of how much it's gonna change from now until, you know, we actually go for a vote next year.
[Matt Rice]: So, and I think the other big piece of that is that the actual reimbursement, what's gonna get reimbursed, the MSBA will have a say in, and we cannot predict upfront always, or ever, exactly what categories are going to reimburse. There's going to be a dialogue back and forth. They're not going to want to reimburse for as many things as possible because they're trying to maximize how they can distribute their funding across the commonwealth, right? And we're going to try to get them to reimburse for as much as possible. So that dialogue happens when we submit the PTP report. It starts then. It doesn't conclude until we get to the end of the schematic design phase. So there's iterations as well as sort of a back and forth dialogue. That's the other part of the reason that we don't, we don't have that number quite yet, but we'll start to get into that as we move forward.
[Matt Gulino]: Yeah. And the actual reimbursement will change as well as we gain additional incentive incentive points for, um, you know, maintenance practices, efficient school building. If we do renovate portions of the school, there are other ways to gain incentive points. And we won't know that until MSBA starts to review the documents and even further into the PSR phase when we narrow an option down. We'll start to feed them all this information so they can start to understand what the goals are, but the reimbursement rate itself will also change between now and the schematic design.
[Luke Preisner]: That's fine. I didn't ask about reimbursement rate. I just asked about percentage that's reimbursable for each of the space summary categories. So you have two classes of proposal. You have a new build and an ad reno. And my question is, and they'll look a little different, right? Because of, you know, existing structure has probably a different reimbursable size than maybe new structure. So what I am asking is, has SMMA or left field looked for the two proposals and tabulated what percentage of each space that's being displayed in the color bar chart is reimbursable, and then what's not? That one right there. So like in the pink, is 30% of that reimbursable? That kind of question. I see what you mean.
[Jenny Graham]: I think the answer is no. They can't tell us that. So that pink, but just to put some context, that pink, that big pink, those are our CTE programs. Those space numbers are derived by DESE's guidelines for what is required to educate students in those Chapter 74 programs. There's not more space there than DESE requires us to build to have these programs in a new building. And those spaces, generally speaking, are part of the educational plan and are reimbursable. It is bigger for new shop and it includes four new programs over what exists in the building today. So we can't build a building that does not conform to the regulations of SE for those chapter 74 programs. And there's no like in that case, I've not heard any reason to believe that the MSBA will be like, we're not going to pay for that. particular program or that amount of space, because they defer to DESE on those matters. Am I correct?
[Phil Santos]: Yes. Can we go back one slide? Bill? There's one question there. Sure. So I think this would be the spot where that question brings up. So for example, that last column says DESE guidelines are at MSBA. So to me, what I understand is 68,000 of that top line out of the proposed 80,000 is reimbursable. Is that not true?
[Libby Brown]: Not necessarily.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's a negotiation that we're going to have with MSBA going forward. There's a certain number of core academic classrooms that it's a very one-to-one sort of arrangement, but there's some different spaces like large group instruction spaces where we always have a back and forth in terms of, are they reimbursable? And if so, how many of them are reimbursable? And then are they allowable in the project? So we have to go through each of those sort of conversation for every single line item, not just here, but on that more detailed sheet that everyone received a copy of.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Just make two more points. One is we'll start to get our first taste of what the MSBA's reaction is once we submit PDP. They have three weeks to come back with their comments. And so then you will start to see, oh, you know, this, you know, we will not participate. We may participate. Again, it's that dialogue that we will be going back and forth with them on. One category is probably the brown band. The other category, that is your most vulnerable category with respect to expected reimbursement. And that's one that most projects we spend a lot of time talking about.
[Libby Brown]: Libby, did you have a question? I was just trying to state it differently. I think Phil kind of got to it with just the simplest thing, the 200k delta, which looks scary. I think they're answering this. So that's the part that we're going to figure out. It's not necessarily not going to be the universe.
[Phil Santos]: I think you guys are saying that.
[Libby Brown]: It scared me at first, too. That's a lot.
[Phil Santos]: Yeah, because my other framing, too, was like, I know that it's not for short details. But then that rightmost column is the maximum possible reimbursable thing. You've got to go into the details. where, so like you said, the delta between those is guaranteed not to be reimbursable, but maybe not.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, not quite. One example, just to make it specific, is the preschool classrooms. Those are actually in the other category because the MSBA tells us that's where we have to place them, but they were part of the SOI initially. They haven't approved the enrollment in the classroom space. So those Again, I don't ever like to say, yes, they're going to be, but that's closest that you can get to say, yes, it's in the other category, but it will be reimbursed. It's a really good amount of square footage as well. It's probably like 20,000 square feet of classroom space.
[Jenny Graham]: I think the other document that I found helpful in going through this that you all have a copy of is the narrative that goes with the, which is a PDF now, but it looks like an Excel spreadsheet. But the narrative goes through each of those buckets and it says, What was planned for in Medford's version? What is the MSBA guideline or the DESI guideline? And why is there a difference? So that's like a good place for people to look about like where there's like, to the point of like, where will there be conversation? That's a really good document to look at to understand like some of those things. So the other category, you know, there's all kinds of stuff in other. And it is vulnerable, but it also is, in some cases, not as vulnerable as it seems for the pre-K. Or central administration is today housed in this building. They have to go somewhere. There was some other place to put them like that could potentially be a conversation that we could explore to reduce the size of the building. But short of that, we have to build them space so that they can operate the district. So there's lots and lots and lots of stuff. But I think that to me, that narrative document was very helpful as a companion to the Excel spreadsheet, which is very, very detailed. And there's lots of really good information in there. Um, but, but reading the words was like pretty compelling to me. So I would recommend people take a look at that if they haven't already.
[Rosemary Park]: Sorry, I can't really hear what's going on there. Um, but I think, you know, something else to point out is what we had mentioned earlier with the special education right now, you know, MSBA in their template that we have to use in order to chart out all of the different program spaces, they only hold certain line items and provide numbers for just a few things in special education. So again, we anticipate that all, if not most of what you see in special education under proposed would also eventually be covered under the MSBA DESE guidelines as well. So again, there's just, you know, I think that that's, maybe we should have been clear about, you know, these are the MSBA DESE guidelines as listed in their template, but that these are absolutely going to shift and change because we have those conversations. We try to, you know, we explain the justification needed behind each of these spaces. the sizing of the spaces, the quantity of the spaces, because it's part of your educational plans, part of the goals and vision for the district.
[Jenny Graham]: Before we post this presentation, can we add either a footnote or retitle that column so that it does not cause the confusion that we're hearing tonight? Sure. Perfect. Thank you. Are there other questions from the committee? I see Gaston has something. Yeah, Rosemary, just give me one second. I just wanna make sure that the committee doesn't have any other questions that they would like answered first. Okay, Gaston, would you state your name and address for the record, please?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yes, thank you very much. Gaston Fiore, 61 Sting New Road. I'll be very brief. I have a question regarding slides 10 and 11. Either would work for my question? So I see there that vocations and technology is the only space category that is actually below the MSBA slash DC guidelines. I think that I share the concerns of Luke and Madam Mayor in terms of the cost of the project. However, if this is gonna cost a lot of money, I think that we should focus on vocational and technology programs. And I'm just confused as to why that's the only category that is below the DESI guidelines. Every other single category is above. For example, art and music is 36% above the DESI guidelines. I mean, as a resident, I want our schools to prepare our students for high-paying jobs, for the jobs of the future. Competition out there is fierce, is fierce at the international level. We have fierce competition from other countries, from countries that are our adversaries. And the future is in vocational and technology education. And I'm just disappointed that it's the only category, again, where the proposed building squares footage is below the Desic Island. So as a resident, and even without any kids, so no kids in the public school system, I would really love to, you know, we're gonna pay a lot of money for this project to see a school that excels at vocational and technology education. So if at all possible, I would love to see the proposed square footage for that category to go at least to the 123,425 square footage, which is the desi guidelines. Again, considering that is the only category in this whole table that is below that. Thanks so much for the opportunity to speak. I appreciate that.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Gaston. Just to point out a clarification, there's two things in that bucket. There's non-Chapter 74 programs, and there's Chapter 74 programs. Our 19 CTE programs are in the second one, and those are planned at DESE guideline. And that is substantially bigger than we are currently dealing with. I'm hoping Matt can talk a little bit about what is a non-Chapter 74 space, because it is a pretty narrow definition, and I don't think we are actually shortchanging our vocational programs at all, but those spaces are, those are very special spaces. So can you talk about what those are?
[Matt Rice]: Yeah I'm first just going to start by reiterating the fact that that increase in terms of Chapter 74 square footage indicates a real tremendous commitment and investment in vocational education throughout the building moving forward. So I think that's a big part of our educational plan overall. The non-Chapter 74 program spaces are outside of dedicated students that are sort of going down a CTE career track program. They're really meant to provide hands-on learning activities for supplementing maybe a college track education in terms of where a student is taking their coursework. So some examples of this might be an engineering lab, a family consumer science lab even, where we're teaching about sort of cooking, sewing, things that are hands-on in sort of a different way. And so it's really meant to supplement curriculum as in terms of adding programs, as well as supplementing existing curriculum by providing spaces where those hands-on activities can occur if they can occur in sort of traditional classroom space. And so all of these spaces that you see here that are represented in that 11,580, it's actually a tremendous increase also from what is here today. And we can't just go add square footage without having educational rationale and a plan for it as well. The educational plan when you read through the district has done a really great job of identifying where staff is planned to actually supplement and augment the existing curriculum with these hands-on learning opportunities. So it definitely is part of a plan and a focus to move more towards that hands-on learning and sort of CTE and vocational instruction in general. It's just that it's not reaching that full Deci guideline or in MSBA. This is an MSBA guideline number there, partly because it's already sort of a tremendous increase from what's here today and also because there's a tremendous commitment from the chapter 74 programs as well. So sorry, that was a long answer, but hopefully that's right.
[Aaron Olapade]: When it comes to students, able-bodied students, things like that. Does that vary widely or is it generally speaking like that 900-ish square footage we're considering?
[Matt Rice]: It does vary pretty widely in terms of this particular student population, especially if it's a chapter 74 program. From a safety perspective, you just need a lot more square footage for a student in terms of accommodating them. I think you'd find the same in terms of special education students and so then it comes back to for how many students do you have and sort of what is their particular learning challenge or opportunity? And how does that equate to space? So I think there's a lot of complexity to it above and beyond just a typical sort of gen ed student.
[Luke Preisner]: So I want to express that I fully support CTE programs. I think VOC is kind of the future. And you know, I think it's great that we're investing in vocational programs and chapters that we support. For context, though, I look at similar schools, so Waltham and Somerville, which also have robust chapter 74 offerings. And when you look at their space summaries, which are readily available in their PSRs, it does stand out. And I understand that this is all per guidelines. It does stand out that what we're proposing is like twice as big as Somerville's and significantly larger than Waltham's. And I wanted to ask, is there a benchmarking activity that you carry out for projects? I know that there's a lot of inertia that builds and we're all part of it. We go to visioning meetings, we participate in various committees, And we build inertia through documents that we generate, that we approve. And I get it. And I know that there's a lot of inertia behind what we're looking at now. But is there a point where we kind of step back and say, take stock of kind of where we got to and compare it to other schools? And in our case, I think Waltham and Somerville are reasonable candidates for benchmarking.
[Matt Rice]: So I'll answer the question but I also just want to suggest that maybe afterwards we can just shift into the next gear because I know we have a lot of other content to get through. In terms of that question that's one actually that keeps me up at night in terms of when we came up with this number for CTE spaces initially I went back because those are both schools that SMMA has designed right. And so we have intimate familiarity with why. So I asked myself that same question. Well why is this so big. Why are we sort of trending so large in terms of the space. And I think there's a couple of reasons. One is the number of programs that are there, and then the character of the programs. So not all CTE Chapter 74 programs are created equal, right? Where's Lisa? So a programming web development shop has a much different size requirement at a minimum size than, say, a carpentry shop or an electrical shop or something that has, again, more hands-on activity. There's more safety concerns for a student. So there's that basic difference in terms of looking at the mix of shops that we have here. We are adding shops here as well. So both Somerville and Waltham have 14 shops in total. They did add some and they sort of sunsetted some as part of it. So we have roughly 25%, 20% more shops in terms of square footage, but it also goes back to the type of shop. The last consideration, which I think is really the biggest driver is it goes to the actual enrollment and the strength of the programs. all of the shops at both Somerville and Walden are all sized at the minimum size, which means that they just, their enrollment is distributed across all those shops equally. And historically, and sort of moving forward, they don't bring in more than sort of what that minimum allotment is. It's not sort of a litmus test on the program, it's just sort of the fact and reality of where they are. I think because Medford has had such a long tradition with the VOC, sort of even when it was a separate school before it became comprehensive, that the programs are actually incredibly well enrolled, sometimes three times the number of students that you have in some of them. The electrical shop is like the best example of that. And the space that they have here right now is almost 50% smaller than what is recommended by those DESE guidelines for the number of students that they have currently. And they're also looking at actually bringing in additional instructors in terms of growing the population further, which is, it's a really smart thing to do, right? Because electricians are, they're like the future they're like driving the entire economy and sort of where we're going. So it's tied into also the strength of the enrollment and the popularity and the success of the CTE programs here in terms of driving that size to where it is. So it's not one of those things, but I think it's sort of a crude increase in terms of size when we look at comparisons. And we'll continue to do that as we go forward in terms of benchmarking against other programs to see where they are, see if we can find some efficiencies, but we don't want to also build something that is not capitalizing on the strength of the programs and setting the school up for future success moving forward.
[Jenny Graham]: I would encourage everyone to read those documents. If you have questions, I'm happy to field them and get them to the right people for answers. Because at our next meeting, we will be signing off on those documents to be submitted. do send questions if you have them. Before we talk about cost information, I think this group last time said they specifically wanted to talk about how we would evaluate all 29 of these options in some cohesive way. So the team at SNMA provided this chart for us. Obviously, there's nothing for us to do here tonight. in March when we meet on the 23rd, we will use this as a jumping off point to say, as a committee here, what is our rubric that we want to use to evaluate all of these options? And how do we weight all of these factors? So that is up to us to decide. And that's what we will do in March. But we wanted to just give you a sense of what kinds of things we could consider. We don't have to consider all of these. We might want to consider all of these and then some. That is what our 323 meeting will be dedicated to. But what you can see here is where it covers the gamut of space optimization, what we're including and what we're not including in terms of some of the alternates, cost, schedule, educational plan, sustainability, how big the building is, what the site looks like, what our construction impacts and costs are, what our operational costs will be of the building when it's complete, and sort of what support it provides to the community at large. So all of those things are things we could decide to wait in our decision. After that 323 meeting, we'll come out with a combined something that everyone can feel good enough about. in terms of collaborating to come up with a weighting and ranking system. And then the team will use that to give us input about each of the options. So if you want to flip to the next slide, Matt, obviously you can't see this at all. You don't need to. It's completely empty right now. But what it does do is say across the top, here's all of the options. And then down each column would be an evaluation based on the ranking that we're asking for. that we'll then be able to use that to say, how do we narrow this field down and what are the considerations?
[John Falco]: On the previous slide, are all of those actually things for which you will actually have, I mean, I'm assuming, but I'm looking at them and I'm like, wow, you're gonna have those details about every one of the options will actually be available?
[Matt Rice]: For the vast majority of them, there may have been a couple that's like all the way on the right hand side, which is like a future consideration or we don't have enough information just yet But I'd say that's maybe 5% max in terms of the number of items that are here. So the idea is, yes, most of this information we can evaluate up front. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Other questions about evaluation criteria? So again, take it away, lash you on it while on vacation.
[Libby Brown]: Oh, hi, Lisa. Go ahead. I just wanted to know, are all of these designs currently going to be evaluated at the proposed square? All of them are going to be equal in terms of square footage. Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: I realize there's a difference between new build and motivation and leading, but they're all of the proposed. Yeah, we would be using the same criteria for all of the options. Whatever that criteria is, it would be the same.
[Libby Brown]: But the square footage, because I know the discussion about the square footage and SBA with cover and stuff, but we're just going straight with the proposed square footage on those charts.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, we need to use the same square footage to do the evaluation. That square footage could change between now and the time that we do that. But that is something for this committee to think about as we go. OK, moving on. The next topic, and we have about 40 minutes or so. The next topic is to start to look at some of the initial cost estimates based on all of the things that we've been talking about. So I'm going to turn it over to the team.
[Matt Rice]: You want to give a hug? Yeah. Just to remind everyone in terms of the framework of what we're working with, we are required to submit three different options at a minimum So we've categorized all the different options into these A, B, C and D categories. A are the code upgrade options, right? B and C are addition renovation options. And then D are new construction options. The reason that we have the B and the C in between, not just an A, B, C is that some of the addition renovation options involve looking at all different wings of the existing building and really looking at different combinations, permutations of renovating and adding on to those. And then the C options are really just focused on looking at maybe what we could call the high-value assets, those spaces that are bigger than what we could build new. And so if we can preserve and renovate them, we'll get to keep those larger-sized spaces. So that would be primarily sort of the athletics area, so the gymnasium, the gymnastics gym, That seems to warrant its own collection of options. So that's the reason we have the A, B, C, and D. And we mentioned it here again only because we're going to keep going back to this concept that we have the A, B, C, and D options that we're looking at from an estimated standpoint. And then also just as a quick reminder, we are working here across all 29 of the different options that we talked about at the last building committee meeting. So it definitely amplifies and multiplies the the quantity of numbers that we're looking at, but I think if you can try to keep the A, B, C, D categories in mind, it'll make more sense in terms of how you can actually parse apart the numbers and understand them.
[Matt Gulino]: All right. So we just handed out for those in the room, a hard copy of the PDP comparative cost analysis I want to stress this one more time. This is not a construction estimate. A construction estimate is hundreds of pages long. This is supposed to be a comparative cost analysis between the options using current market cost per square foot data. We don't have detailed backup. This is a very high level kind of gut check of where we are currently. There are assumptions that are made both by the design team and the estimators when it comes to how long the project is, how many modular trailers may be, you know, a lot of logistical things, you know, how many phases the project going to be. So there, each of these options evaluates all of those things.
[Matt Rice]: Before you jump in, I just need for anyone eyes that I might are not this good, but if you're at home and you're actually wanting to see this information, The QR code in the top right-hand corner, you can actually scan that, and that will take you to a link that will have this information, and that was in a PDF format that you can actually read. So just if you want to get better access to the information, you can go that route.
[Matt Gulino]: So we're not going to review every single one of these numbers. We'll be here forever. But I did want to kind of explain how this spreadsheet is broken out. Um, just so that as you review it in your own time, you can kind of understand, um, how we got to these numbers. Um, The, there are really four kind of major categories, uh, in this spreadsheet. Uh, the first is direct trade costs. Uh, which is really the expenses to complete a construction activity, the labor, the materials, uh, the equipment. just kind of the very down and dirty, this is what the actual work costs for those activities. It does not include fees for architects and OPMs. It does not include fees and any costs for construction management. So this is just very strictly the cost of the work, which I realize there's a bit of a formatting mistake that I made when I printed this. On the right side there, you can see rows 1 to 11. Those are the categories that make up that direct trade cost. So the renovation, whether we're renovating a portion of the school, an addition or a new build, the site work, which is comprised of two numbers, the site work without parking, And then a separate parking number, because we do have a bunch of different parking options that we kind of looked at. The pool scope, whether it's a renovation or a new pool. And then the hazardous removal and demolition needed, or really any of the options. We have to remove any hazardous materials, whether we demolish it or renovate it. So those numbers are fairly consistent throughout the entire spreadsheet. Once you receive your directory costs is when you mark it up with your construction management, your construction manager fees, their general conditions, their general requirements, insurance, really anything that the construction manager needs to complete the project. At this phase, we are also incorporating a design contingency and escalation. We have not done any design, so we do carry a percentage of that direct trade costs for any designing that needs to occur over the next two years. Similar with escalation, we always carry escalation on a project to the midpoint of construction, which is mid-2028, or end of 2028 in this case. And again, that's carried at a percentage as well. So once you have those numbers, And those calculations, that is what becomes your construction costs. And that is really kind of the all-in number to actually do the work with your construction manager. Again, that does not include OPM and designer fees or what we call soft costs. Soft costs is essentially if you pick up a building and you shake it like anything that falls out. So furniture, equipment, really that's a high-level kind of easy way to think about it. Also, yeah, OPM and designer fees, yeah, furniture, fixtures, equipment, technology. From the construction costs, the two markups that we have right now to get to the total project cost, we carry a 25% soft cost markup when we get further down the line. This won't be carried as just a percentage. We will actually put numbers to all of the different categories in the soft costs, like the furniture and the technology and any of the fees that are incorporated there. That is generally an industry standard that we find soft costs within 25% is achievable. And then we also carry the modular trailer costs, which does vary depending on how many modulars we need. Some of the renovations tackle the more densely, more dense classroom wings. So we need significantly more trailers for certain options. So those kind of vary throughout the spreadsheet as well. The total estimated project cost is the value that will be approved by Medford for a debt exclusion. So that is at the end of the day, the number that kind of matters the most for this group and for the difference and for the city. Um, because that is what needs to be approved as a debt exclusion in order to move forward. Um, again, the full amount of the project needs to be approved and funded by Medford. Uh, and then you receive reimbursement back from the MSBA. Um, but the full amount does need to be approved by the city. At the very bottom of the sheet, the program alternates, these were spaces that are really a part of the program, but we knew that given the size of the school and some of the give and take that will be required, we broke them out as separate line items. But I did want to show how that affects the overall project costs, both construction and total project costs. Um, since again, those programs are desired to be in the school, we had just, uh, included them separately, um, at this phase. Uh, so that's really kind of a high level how to review it. Um, happy to take questions.
[Luke Preisner]: Hey Matt, a quick question. Um, if we fail a debt exclusion vote, uh, the smallest number I see is 850 million and the biggest was like 935 million. And without even benchmarking against other projects, any of us can do that. We fail a debt exclusion vote. Does MSBA eject us from the process and require us to resubmit an SOI? How does that work?
[Kenneth Lord]: Yes, is the short of that, yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, that's not entirely true, right? Like I've seen many communities have to go through multiple rounds of debt exclusion as they have worked with MSBA.
[Libby Brown]: Yes, if Martha's Vineyard, if you do fail that vote, you have a lot of time, 10 days or two weeks or something like that to put a plan in place with the MSBA to start conversations with them. It's not a guarantee that they will work with you to get back into the pipeline. It's possible. As we've said, it has happened on other projects. defining why it happened, what the next steps in the timeline are to have another vote and go back to the community to ask. But you do need to work very closely with the MSBA to make that happen. And while it has happened, it's not very likely that the MSBA would go that route. And so they might wind up taking you out. You'd have to start all over again. Well, thank you.
[John Falco]: So without getting into the details of that, if we lose the vote at 49.9%, is that a reason why they might be like, well, maybe you should try again?
[Libby Brown]: It could be. Basically, you'd have to really document it.
[John Falco]: If you lose the vote at 30%, they're probably going to be like, you're not getting it.
[Libby Brown]: If you want to add any color to anything you've seen in that realm.
[Matt Rice]: Medfield is a good example. Medfield failed to vote and they have just submitted and were accepted back into the program in the most recent board meeting with the MSBA. So just a point that does happen. It is not frequent. but it does happen out there. So, and I don't know that we, obviously I understand why the question was asked, but I don't know that we want to focus there right now. I think we should focus on sort of what the numbers are here and then figure out for what is the value proposition for the community rate.
[Matt Gulino]: The last page are the alternates, which I will make sure everybody has in a PDF form.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Let me... I can't see you all in this corner.
[Jenny Graham]: Is there a... No, no, it's okay. I didn't... I thought I saw somebody say... Okay. Aaron?
[Aaron Olapade]: Yeah. For example, the program alternates, you know, I don't know obviously when those would start being constructed, you know, prior to or during the time we do, you know, cost replacement programs and things like that. Obviously, you know, some of them will come before other ones. With any of the pricing, if things are happening later down the timeline of the bills, are the cost numbers that are associated here, are those considering like, if this happens like in three years time, like the cost materials and tariffs, all that kind of stuff that I think many of us are wondering about, and I'm sure the community will be wondering about too. Do we consider like the upper limit, assuming the cost of inflation, things like that here, or is that part of like the, So the design contingency, the things might change cost-wise and things like that.
[Matt Gulino]: Design contingency is very specific to design. It's just we haven't completed it yet. So we carry a contingency to kind of get all of the pieces and parts correct. And yeah, that escalation through the midpoint of construction is really to account for, yeah, for escalation and for inflation of building materials.
[Jenny Graham]: I guess the one thing I would say about the alternates, though, is these prices, correct me if I'm wrong, assume that they are being constructed with the rest of the building. So if something were going to come off the list or be added to the list, but more likely come off the list, we would do that before we went into schematic design, because you would need to know where to put those things in the building in order to do the schematic design work that is needed to actually get the cost, the real construction cost estimates. Is that correct?
[Kimberly Talbot]: That's correct. And I would, alternates, I think we came up with a different name as we get into a little more detail in these slides. Don't think of them as alternates, really. This is the all-in project that we've been describing and talking about with the space summaries. So yes, you are looking at the very bottom line or the project as described at the square footage that you've seen at the 600 plus thousand square feet. So these were more to get information about which, what costs were associated with these components, almost like a breakout, but think of it that way.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Can I also just like extend that part? If you look at like the early childhood center, that is, we've talked about this before, but that's comprised of MFN, Medford Family Network, which we currently house here. And if we were to not include, don't have a home, they would have to figure that out. It also includes our Kids' Corner, which is our municipal daycare, which is currently housed here. That is for the daycare facility for teachers, for municipal employees, such as fire, police, city. We do have community members that have, that use Kids' Corner as well when there are available seats. And then it does include bringing of all of our NEAP programs, which is our preschool programs, to provide an early childhood center here. But I just want to be very clear where those three components are of that center and how two of them are currently housed here. And without including them in this build, we would have to figure out where they go where else they would be housed in the city.
[Matt Rice]: I think we come back to the program sort of separate slide items further down the presentation, just have a little bit more context to share on the numbers. And I know it's a lot, but there's some important pieces here. One of them is just the fact I think I thought where Aaron was going actually was a segue into this slide in terms of talking about the fact that we have estimated durations and sort of a phasing approach for every one of the 29 different options in terms of making sure that those things like the general conditions for the contractor over a certain amount of time. whether it's modular classrooms over a certain amount of time, all those things are at least approximated in terms of a way that's viable. So we won't go through all the detail here and there's some specific call-outs in terms of assumptions of when we would start, right? We're actually thinking of doing some early work starting in July of 2027. We don't know what that early work is yet because we don't know what the alternative is gonna be and they would vary depending, but we're gonna run out to, completion date for the construction of the building and then there's going to be some site work as well that we have to do on so that that phasing logic is built into every one of the estimates and it it does impact the cost in terms of longer construction process, a it impacts education for a longer time, but also it does increase the cost accordingly. And then the other piece of that that is tied into it is temporary modular classroom buildings. And this is an important one because this one is categorically non-reimbursable. This is entirely on the city in terms of funding. And they're essentially throwaway buildings, right? They're there for a real purpose because if we're renovating in place or if we're building on top of the existing footprint of the building, kids, teachers have to go somewhere during that process. And so we need to account for an inventory of classrooms at some location across the site. And this slide is not meant to scare anybody by saying we're putting modular classroom buildings all over the site, right? This is a whole bunch of different options of where it can be considered. What we were focused on primarily is the quantity of classrooms that we need. And all of the phasing approaches sort of work around one basic premise that the B and the C wings here have the highest quantity of classrooms. The C wing has like 51 classrooms in it. So we can't renovate or replace the B and the C wings at the same time, because that would essentially double the amount of modular classrooms that you're seeing already, which is already a very large number, right? So this is just all sort of a long way of saying we've accounted for the quantities of modular classrooms. You'll see them in that breakdown as you go through as a separate line item. There are two options right now that we're envisioning that actually would not require modular classrooms to be brought by the site. So there's a financial benefit and a impact on education benefit there. There may be others that we want to look at and say, can we find a way to do this without modular classrooms? And we're certainly still at that point in the process, but we're just trying to evaluate them on the face of the option right now in terms of where the construction was shown. So this is where we get into it.
[Matt Gulino]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So these, again, are the additional programming items that are included on your main spreadsheet. I didn't know if there were any other questions on these specifically. I know Dr. Galusi gave a good explanation on the early childhood center, which is obviously the largest figure there.
[Luke Preisner]: One question. So for the code upgrade, Um, are these spaces included or no, these would not be included for a code upgrade. Correct. Thank you.
[Libby Brown]: Except for maybe like the central offices. Correct. The names that exist here now. Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. I think there's a few more slides, right Matt?
[Matt Gulino]: Uh, yeah. So there were some additional, uh, alternates that would also uh, took a look at, uh, parking. Um, this is just kind of a breakdown of the three different options that, that, uh, we looked at, uh, depend, you know, we, we kind of talked about, uh, those different options here with this committee. Uh, base bid is just starting at, at pre parking like you have now, uh, and the other options, um, with, uh, the synthetic turf field on top of, uh, on top of a garage. uh, a more significant turf field on top of the garage featuring more of a stadium. Uh, and then the third option being a four-story parking garage. So, um, those numbers are reflected in your, um, uh, in the matrix as well. And there is a parking approach just to clarify which option we included. Um, you know, there are maybe some different variations on different options that, uh, could support multiple or one or the other. of these alternates, but there are also some options that wouldn't support some of them as well. So it's not like we can just say, hey, we want to do option one on all of them. We may not be able to on certain options. So that's something that we can continue to work out and figure out which options cannot be done on certain options. I think that will be a shorter list.
[Matt Rice]: And that alternate is really a topic that's going to get into sort of looking at site priorities and how we use the site for this site program elements. And the agency team has done a really nice job of trying to give a little bit of a preview. I don't think it's worth diving into this in detail tonight, but just so you can understand sort of what the jigsaw puzzle is. Where's Paul? In terms of trying to like put the different parts on the site. I think this is going to be useful as a tool as we go forward. I don't know, Kate, if you just want to take a second and Give some detail here.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah, just big picture. I think we we wanted to give some color to the parking options because we already have heard that there's interest in fields too. And I think we want to just be clear that there's a limited amount of buildable area on the site. There's a lot of grade and there's a lot of property line that we need to honor in terms of setbacks. And then the big building, the big drivers of use of that flat space are the building, the parking and the fields. And so What this diagram is trying to express is that if you have all surface parking, you have room for about an edgerly field. So roughly two soccer fields left over on site in flat areas. If you go to a decked parking, you essentially have two edgerly fields to make use of how you like. And if you go to a garage parking, you have more like 1.75. opportunities to have smaller practice fields or other configurations, but a little bit more than edgerly, a little bit more like what you have now with some alternative options there. So not a decision you have to make tonight, but I think we want to be really clear that the diagrams you saw, we've baked in, you know, the assumptions about garages and decked parking that you saw, because of the amount of green space you saw in those diagrams, it's included in the and could be deducted if you want to do surface parking by Google's fields.
[Matt Gulino]: Another kind of breakout of the alternates were different pool options. We really have kind of two base bids because one is renovated and one is a new build for the D options. So you can see the two options there at the top and then the other Three options below are the alternates. The new standalone pool facility is pool option one, and that's for A, B, and C. Pool option two is to demolish the pool facility and have no pool, which is why there is a decrease from the base bid For that option, there is still cost to demo and abate the building. But at the end, there is technically a savings because you're not building anything new. And then pool option two. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, that's just a, if we were to remove the new pool from option D, or from the new build options in option B, if we were to remove that, that would be a decrease by what the base bid cost is for the new pool.
[Matt Rice]: So this is one that should be like way simpler in terms of understanding it. Like I wish it was simpler in terms of just thinking like we can either renovate a pool or no pool or add a pool, right? Brand new pool building. It just gets into the nuance of the existing pool building in terms of how it is constructed and the fact that there are things in that wing of the building that are not directly related to the pool. So we tried to sort of illustrate this in the diagram that even the diagram is complicated, but essentially it's kind of like a Jenga puzzle where like the locker rooms for the pool extend on level three below the batting cage viewing gallery up above. And they also extend above some of the team rooms for the building down below. So we're trying to like slot a piece in. So if we say we're just going to like not do a pool and then we're going to leave the rest of that wing You're going to have some space that wants to fall down, and then you're going to have the mechanical room, the boiler room, but the whole building is stuck on the end of the pool wing. So you're going to have all these sort of weird loose bits. So what we've done is really found a way to estimate sort of the different options that are there, but it's just unfortunately not as simple as like taking away and bringing it in. I don't know that it's worth spending the time right now to try to explain that unless anyone really wants us to, but I will highlight
[Matt Gulino]: because of the complexity of the school building, that is why you're seeing the pool base bid for the renovation options is actually more expensive than a new build. And that's because that also includes the F wing, which is all of those additional spaces, just because of how interconnected they are. So it's actually a larger renovation scope of that building because it includes some of those other spaces that are right next to the pool.
[Jenny Graham]: So Matt, can I just ask a question? I just want to make sure I'm interpreting this correctly. It would be more expensive to renovate the pool in its current location than it would be to build a standalone pool somewhere on the site in a separate project. Is that correct?
[Matt Gulino]: Correct, but you have to remember that that renovation piece also includes some of those other miscellaneous spaces that Matt just talked about. Yes, we did talk with the estimator, and to try not to confuse things more, did not include it. He did give us a breakout cost for just the pool building proper. And I want to say it was just south of $12 million for, again, just the actual pool facility renovation, not the rest of that.
[Jenny Graham]: Got it. So when we say building app, we're talking about pool costs?
[John Falco]: Correct.
[Jenny Graham]: OK, thank you.
[John Falco]: To be clear, you literally can't just do that $12,000. Correct, yeah.
[Matt Gulino]: Yes, again, this is kind of that jigsaw puzzle scenario that Matt was talking about. It's unfortunately a very complicated part of the building, with the boiler room being there as well.
[Matt Rice]: And we're happy to take some more time as we move forward to explain that further to people, but I also just want to make sure that we have enough time to get another hand over here.
[Matt Gulino]: Right. Two more ages of alternates. So I broke out these alternates. uh, because these will have a direct impact on the life cycle cost analysis and the mechanical systems, uh, and the energy efficiency of the building. Um, they're essentially just different PV options. Um, base bit carries a fixed percentage of, of panels on the roof. Uh, and then PV2 adds, um, uh, a canopy and PV mounted, uh, and PV panels over parking. And then PV3 is just to provide that structure in the event that the PV panels are being procured through the city elsewhere. That would be the cost for just the structured. The HVAC options, the base bid is carrying geothermal. Geothermal is the most expensive upfront cost. There's obviously a lot of benefits on the backend, which is what we'll get into with the life cycle cost analysis when we get there. uh, but this gives you a sense of, of the, uh, really decreases from the base bid for pursuing different, uh, different HVAC options, uh, whether you go with a full air source heat pump option, um, or kind of a, a, a blend of the two, uh, both with some ground and some, uh, air sourced heat pumps, uh, and then, uh, and then the VRF system, uh, being a totally separate system. Um, also quite more affordable than geothermal, but there are some trade-offs with that type of system as well. Does anybody have any questions on these group of alternates? If not, the last one is really just talking about access, the first three. Um, just kind of, you know, um, where we may, uh, bring access into the site, knowing that we do need a second, uh, means of egress. Uh, so this just kind of prices out the different, uh, accesses that we're looking at. Uh, and then the, uh, TIM 1 and 2 are, uh, the inclusion of, um, timber framing in lieu of, of structural. Um, and we accounted for 50% of the system. being timbered and then doing a full timber system. So you can see those two ads at the end of the day is how the timber works out. So that's it for all of the estimates. Again, we tried to break them out into categories that kind of made sense. but we'll make sure that you have a list of all of the alternates together so you can kind of see them on one sheet as well.
[Libby Brown]: Questions? I see we have one hand up online.
[Jenny Graham]: Harrison Green. And would you please just state your name and address for the record?
[Harrison Green]: Yes, Harrison Green, 2 Verona Light Road.
[Jenny Graham]: Harrison, did you have a comment?
[Harrison Green]: sufficient for the building, how are we going to get into how we can decide between those options? Because in the absence of that, it seems like the cheaper option would be better. But like you're saying, there are drawbacks to both, or benefits and drawbacks to both. So how can we decide what to prioritize for those kind of decisions for the parking structure, et cetera?
[Jenny Graham]: Carson, I think we missed the first part of your question. I think what you're asking about is How do we evaluate some of the alternates and make those decisions? Is that your question? Yeah.
[Harrison Green]: Yeah, essentially. Yeah.
[Matt Gulino]: Yeah. OK. That's a big part of what that evaluation criteria matrix that we reviewed before the cost will assist us with is kind of understanding you know, what people view as being more advantageous, um, than other options. So that, that will be kind of step one, uh, to help us, um, understand, you know, how, uh, the committee is feeling about the different alternates. Uh, cost certainly does play a factor in that evaluation. Um, but like you said, it's not the only thing because there are definitely trade-offs to, um, you know, to all of these options.
[Jenny Graham]: And Matt, does the lifecycle cost analysis of some of these things start to be discussed at the upcoming advisory meetings in March? Is that the plan?
[Matt Rice]: That's exactly the plan. So the MEP and sustainability advisor team will be looking at preliminary LCCAs As we get into the next phase, into the PSR phase, it's sort of impossible to do when we have 29 different options. But once we're able to sort of reduce our area of focus a bit, and so we have like a manageable number, we'll start to do some very rough cost analysis. The first cost is just a piece of that, right? What we have to do is also understand, are there savings to be had from any of these we go back to the PV and HVAC options, alternates, and we're not even going to be limited necessarily to these in the life cycle cost analysis. There's other systems decisions that play in there as well.
[Jenny Graham]: So Harrison, I think just to like wrap that up in a boat for you, there's a series of advisory teams that are advising SMMA along the way who are Medford residents who have expertise in the various fields. And so they will be providing input to SMMA to help estimate, help guide SMA on like what comes back to this committee ultimately. And that will include like life cycle cost analysis, which we'll look at what is the upfront cost and then also what does that do to the like operation of the building in the long run versus all the other choices. And so once that happens, all of that information comes back to the building committee for the decision-making about the project.
[Harrison Green]: Thank you.
[Luke Preisner]: Anytime. So question about life cycle costs and debt excludes. So is it typical practice for a community that when they vote on their debt exclusion, that they're voting on the construction debt and related construction costs, plus any increases in their expected life cycle costs. So annual like maintenance, do they bundle those or is it, What's typical practice?
[Jenny Graham]: Well, you can't bundle operating costs and capital costs into the same exclusion.
[Luke Preisner]: No, no, but like for, I guess, you know, it's one thing to pay for the construction of the school, but then if we find that our annual budget is insufficient for maintaining the new structure, how do we go about addressing that? Is that a separate profit override or is it something else? What's typically done? that we're going to be able to do that.
[Libby Brown]: That's the question. That would be an opera. But first first, you would, um. Move to approve the full cost of the building project. Like you said related costs. Um. Part of that approval. All of that information we will be doing on what the operating costs of this building will likely be. While you're not, while the city would not be approving, you know, the increase to those costs at the same time as the project, you would understand how a lot of that would look with this project. Does that make sense?
[Luke Preisner]: I believe so. It sounds like it's two separate voting actions.
[John Falco]: I mean, while lots of this stuff, everything in the new building is far more expensive than the stuff we have now. although I don't know that some of our old stuff is actually cheaper, that the assumption is that it's actually more expensive to operate. There will certainly be staffing requirements that will be very different. I mean, operating this building requires a different set of skills. So I don't know if it requires more people, but like we experienced with all the other outside schools, we got away with not touching and doing any maintenance for a very long time, But, you know, I mean, I signed the warrants, $200,000 to eat the building from up or something crazy. Like a lot of those expenses are going to reduce a lot, whether they're offset by the need for more staff that know how to handle the new systems and all that other stuff. Like, I'm not, I don't think I have enough information in the sense of whether it's going to be dramatic and more expensive to operate the building. But seeing the electric and the gas bills now, I would be shocked if you build a new building that is costing anywhere near that. Those just utilities, obviously, that's just a fraction of what it costs to operate. But every time we need to fix something in this building, it's like, you know, you're hunting because they don't make that stuff anymore. Or we have the heating problem. It wasn't a matter of just like getting the right people in to fix the stuff. It's like that stuff is 50 years old, embedded in concrete. So I, I'm hoping this building will be less expensive to operate. Um, but I don't know if you have a sense of like for a building of this age, is that even reasonable to be?
[Matt Rice]: It's completely believable in terms of the maintenance of the building, right, so new building versus this building. It's just night and day in terms of what you're going to have to spend on an annual basis in terms of building maintenance. That's the one that you can count on. The utility question is one that's a lot trickier, right, because it has variable utility rates involved with it for different sources that are at play. We will work with the city in terms of doing some projections based on energy models to understand what we think it could be. But I know our sustainability team is always extremely cautious about saying, well, this is what you're going to have to pay, because there's so many variables to it. And also, when you're doing the modeling effort, there's only a certain level of specificity that you can generate. So generally, we're going to have to see where that pans out in terms of what it takes to actually operate the building from a utility standpoint and where we go. Definitely on the maintenance side, you're going to experience considerable savings. And on the staffing side, the operations side, I think you described it well, Paul, that you're going to have to look at sort of what it may be to actually operate the building. We're planning it for more students, right? So there's going to be more teachers here as well to accommodate that. But that's all going to be something that we try to plot out. The MSB actually asked that we plot out that as well as part of the project planning. We're going to do our best effort and certainly not ignore those very important topics. But there's only a certain amount of certainty that we can provide sort of in the planning process for some of it.
[Libby Brown]: Any other questions? I think there's a quick one following up on my last one. These numbers are based on square footage, I understand, and various other factors. Will there be a time that we can we will look at the possibility of a smaller build, or based on our education plan, is the proposed size of the new building kind of set now? Or are we going to consider a smaller? And right now, the proposed is bigger than our current building.
[Jenny Graham]: So I think that can happen at any point in time. But to do it, you would have to articulate, what is it that we won't do in this building? this group would have to vote to remove something. So ed plan can change. The space summary can't. All of these things can change between now and June. But we can't just be like, shrink the building and still do all the things. It doesn't work that way. So when we talk about changing the size of the building, that's where I would recommend spending some time with those documents. If there is something that you look at it and you're like, I don't think we need this thing. That is a conversation for us to have, and to talk about, and to talk with educators about, and look at the impact of the educational plan. All of those things can happen. But we can't just sort of wave a wand and want a smaller building. Because at the end of the day, if we're not compliant with the rules, the MSBA will not support the process. So we can't just be like, yeah, we're going to do all the things in a smaller space. We're good. they're not gonna support that. So we have to be really thoughtful about how those changes get made.
[John Falco]: So when we... So in our educational plan, we're expanding, we're adding some new vocational programs, we're also expanding some of the educational, some of the vocational programs. So we could decide we're not gonna expand elective programs, is probably the worst choice. But like, if we decided that we want to save some money, we want to shrink electrical or keep it steady or not having programs or jettison existing programs, like we can make that decision.
[Jenny Graham]: No, not necessarily. So the educational program is held by the school committee. So the school committee could make that decision. And we could certainly make recommendations to the school committee, but the school committee holds the educational program. And had to sign off and take a vote to approve the expansion of those programs that was based on review by DESE and alignment with what the needs are in the area. So we could do that, but this group would be feeding that recommendation to somebody else, to the school committee, and the school committee would have to agree to that.
[Aaron Olapade]: And so to that end, if we wanted to, let's say, downsize a program, whether it's a CTE program or, you know, one of the program alternates, we have to, this committee has to not only write up an explanation, but give like a articulated reasoning as to why size recommendation that we're currently proposing is not going to align with our current need. And we want to downsize and explain how it's going to impact the educational plan. And we still think it's valuable to consider the production size. And then that goes to the school committee.
[Jenny Graham]: Correct, and then the school committee would be signing off on like a forever wait list, right for that program. And we are always asked to make the wait list smaller, not bigger. So I think that would be a really, really dicey situation, although everything's on the table. I see one more question online, and then we're going to get you all out of here. Gaston?
[Gaston Fiore]: I just wanted to ask for residents that want to give feedback on what we heard today and what we hear in the future. Who should we contact? What is the most efficient method for us to contact people in such a way that our feedback gets taken into account. I looked at the website and I believe the connect with us still says TBD, for example. So I just wanted to know, should we email the school committee? Should we email the mayor? Who should we contact? Thank you so much.
[Jenny Graham]: Sure. No, that's actually a great question, Gaston. We do have a project email address to field those kinds of questions. And I'm going to ask our communications person just to update the contact us spot on the website with that address. But I believe it's mhsproject.medford.k12.ma.us. So we'll get an update on the website momentarily, Gaston. But mhsproject.medford.k12.ma.us. at medford.k12.ma.us. And we'll get an update on the website in case people have questions.
[Luke Preisner]: I know we're short on time. I think we're at the end of the presentation. If we're not, I want to grant time to finish up. But then I would like to make a motion.
[Kimberly Talbot]: OK. Does the team have anything else? Just a enumeration of what the contents of the PDP report are, that you will be voting to approve submitting and highlighting, that's a two-pager, two-slider, some of the things that we have reviewed in detail so that you don't feel completely overwhelmed when we share the information with you. It will be a big report. A lot of it will be like reports from our consultants, appendicides, but It's sizable. We don't want to overwhelm you, but it's a lot of information.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke? So I'd like to make a motion that we ask for two artifacts for information that's been discussed today, that's related to the space summary, but doesn't currently exist. The first is a best effort because we know fixed numbers are not possible, You've been in the business for a while, so you have experience, and you should be able to prepare ranges for the space summary and an indication of what you feel will be, what percentage range will be reimbursable for the proposed space. Not the reimbursement rate, but just how much of that proposed space will be reimbursable for the three categories that we're carrying. And it doesn't have to be for the specific design concepts, but just for those three categories, just so we can develop that sense. Like, what are we asking for that is reimbursable and what's not. That's the first artifact. The second artifact is a benchmarking table that compares our proposed space summaries with what was built for Waltham and what was built for Somerville. So that this committee can have a clear presentation of where there are areas that we're asking for potentially outlier facilities. Not yet, but if it were calculated and we use those two as benchmarks, perhaps that could begin a discussion in the event that it finds beneficial for the overall success of this project to downsize. So that's the motion, create two artifacts, and to create or we have to take a vote on this.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay, so the motion is to ask for the team to create a range of a percentage range of what is reimbursable versus not and a benchmark of Somerville.
[Luke Preisner]: Is that correct? That is incorrect. The first artifact is a space summary presentation, like we've seen, that has been augmented with an indication of what spaces, what level of reimbursement you would expect for the proposed sizes of the space categories. So you saw table, rows, those categories, what your expectation is for reimbursement in those proposed score for this. That's the first artifact. The second artifact is a benchmarking table that takes what's been proposed for Medford and then compares it with what was built, Waltham and what was built for Somerville. So that we have the three schools sort of organized in a convenient way that allows this committee to spot where some of our proposed spaces look like outliers relative to what was actually built for Waltham and Somerville. That's the second part of that.
[Jenny Graham]: OK. Is there a second? Before we debate, is there a second?
[Aaron Olapade]: I'll second it.
[Jenny Graham]: OK. Motion by Lou, seconded by Aaron. Now are there questions, Paul?
[John Falco]: This is a question for Anna. well, whoever will be doing that work. I'm assuming you're gonna be in class for this request.
[Matt Gulino]: I think it's going to be extremely difficult to provide these documents. And I'm not shying away from the request. I understand what you're asking for. But like we talked about, we have no idea what the MSBA is going to say. Yes, this is reimbursable. No, this is not. So going in and throwing in I think that this program is going to be 100% reimbursable. I think it's, one, it's not something that I can do. And I actually think it's not really responsible for me to provide you with information that I cannot back up.
[John Falco]: But I fully understand that and agree. pretending that you did it anyway. It's a substantial effort. So I'm assuming you're on a chart or something. I mean, if you're not going to just do the 100% there for 20 minutes of work to like throw some numbers on the page is not what the request is to be fair. I don't think that would be appropriate to do that, but to truly be, I mean, you're going to have to go all the way back to their educational plans, at least for the comparison because the educational plan is deciding this other stuff. So you have to not just compare, you know, if they do the maximum square foot for classrooms, you're gonna have to look at their educational plan to see whether or not they want to do what I did in the 1970s, have everybody lined up in rows, which if they say that in their educational plan, then their smaller square footage per classroom is correct and reasonable. It is not comparable to what we want So you have to get to that level of detail to say, this is how we prepare. This is why we're not preparing the same. So I just don't envision this to be a couple of days of work.
[Matt Gulino]: So... Yeah, I mean, I think... So it's not in the scope of work? I would say no. This is typically not something that we would do and... And is this in the scope of SMMA's work?
[Matt Rice]: I would answer the same way as Matt, that we have not been asked to do it previously. I think when it would become more useful, honestly, to wait and do it during the PSR phase. So the question I was asking myself, Luke, is, is it necessary? Is it something that you really need to be able to vote one way or not? We're just voting to submit the options to the MSBA. And I was trying to think, okay, so if it comes back with something you don't like, is the idea that we're not voting to submit to the MSBA on schedule? And the only reason I'm saying, can we defer to the beginning of the PSR phase? Because then we'll have the benefit of having one of those exchanges with the MSBA. They'll give us a little bit of a hint to say, yes, we think this is reimbursable or not. So I think it's just also trying to fit in everything that we need to do between like today and the 25th of February when we need to submit. That's what gets me concerned is just trying to like manage our bandwidth, SOMA's bandwidth in terms of getting you that information in an intelligible way. And I think if we could wait just a little bit longer into the beginning of PSR, you'll get a better piece of information of what you're looking for in terms of the information. So it's, I don't know, sort of it's a counter proposal or not, but.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Ken, did you have your hand up?
[Kenneth Lord]: Yes. Doesn't the MSBA at this stage discourage us from publicly estimating what they're going to design? Yeah.
[Matt Gulino]: Like I said at the beginning, it's not something that we typically do.
[Kenneth Lord]: No, maybe the MSBA themselves don't want us to do this either, because they don't want us attempting to prejudge what they're going to judge. Right. Yeah. I've heard that before.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Bill?
[Phil Santos]: I think what I hear, and my concern, is trying to understand the overall timeline of all of these different things that are going to happen in the future. And it feels like we're, without knowing the dates of the other stuff that comes after this, John Caraviello, PB – Paul Stewart): February 25 submission right what happens next, what is the amount of concepts that will have and what level of design. John Caraviello, PB – Paul Stewart): And because it feels like we're racing towards making a selection, and I think that Lucas asking for this information earlier to try to understand, because I think a big part of the calculation and figuring out if this is. something that is affordable, right, is like what percentage of it is reimbursable, obviously, right? That's, I think, is the crux of it. And if we get that information too late, then how do we then switch gears and try to attempt to resize it if it's all of a sudden like, well, we only have two weeks until we have to submit a schematic design or a preliminary design, right? And then we can't go back. But I think that's-
[Jenny Graham]: give you some information on the agenda. There is a detailed listing of all of our meetings between now and June and what we will be doing at each one of them. So on the 23rd, we will be approving the PDP submission. On the 25th, we will be meeting to talk about CM at risk versus design bid build and making some decisions about that. We'll have a community forum on three five, where we will be collecting design input from the community teachers, staff in the building will have a similar meeting on the 3rd. The week of 3-9, there's advisory committee meetings. We have an in-person meeting on the 23rd of March. That's where we will develop our evaluation criteria. So those criteria will be used to help evaluate these 29 options. On 4-27, we will narrow the options from 3 to 5. So we are not narrowing, We are not narrowing anything until the end of April. On 520, we'll have a meeting to review the refined cost estimates of those three to five designs. So when we decide what the three to five are, and we've made some decisions about some of the alternates and where we want to go with all of those things, then we will get a refined set of cost estimates on 520. We have a placeholder meeting on the 27th. and the 10th to continue to have a conversation about whatever it is that's popping up. The decision about a single design option will happen on June 22nd. No, the 10th. June 10th, sorry.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Please submit on the next meeting.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. So that's the plan. So at the next meeting, there's no need for us to make a decision about narrowing the field. that on the plan that will happen at the end of April. Ken?
[Kenneth Lord]: So we're submitting the PDP at the end of February, and we're expecting information back from the MSBA in March after that, which will give us some of the information that Luke is asking for. Right. Yeah. Or at least the direction they're going. Yeah. We'll have a much better understanding of, you know, well in advance of us having to narrow and even probably right about the same time we're talking about the selecting criteria. Yep. we'd have more information about which ones and stuff.
[Libby Brown]: You said there's still conversations that happen about this throughout SD, before we even submit SD, or is this at that point? Is everything set still?
[Jenny Graham]: Maybe it was heard earlier. Well, the full construction cost estimate will not be available until the end of SD. Is that correct?
[Matt Rice]: Correct, yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: Which is until next year.
[Matt Rice]: That's when we lock in the project scope and budget voted on by the MSBA board. And then that is the budget for the project all the way through to the complete construction. Right.
[Libby Brown]: February 2020. And then that's when the MSBA will provide the amount that they will grant. And in the meantime, we're having that conversation with them.
[Kenneth Lord]: Between the PSR and between the SD, we still have the opportunity to adjust square footage down. remove things, tweak. Once we pick that one option and we start to see those, well, maybe we don't want to pick up a whole, maybe we can choose things then.
[Jenny Graham]: So I just have two comments. One is we've heard that this is not in the current scope. So in order to approve this work, we would need an estimate. So that's one thing that we would need if this motion passes. So I might suggest you amend your motion, if you want to, to ask for an estimate of what it would cost to do these things. And I will also say, I'm not in favor of any of this. I'm not in favor of benchmarking against Somerville and Waltham. It's a completely arbitrary analysis. And it is not going to serve us to spin up the community about things that are complete. Their communities are completely different. Their buildings are completely different. Their programming is completely different. But as soon as we start drawing comparisons, it will be the same and it will be very hard for us to unwind that to the community. So I'm not in favor of this at all, but at minimum, if we're being a responsible building committee, we should know what the cost of such an ask is before we're approving it. So I will leave that to you if you want to amend your motion.
[Luke Preisner]: No, I'd like to keep the motion as is.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay, any other questions? Okay, I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham, no. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Libby Brown]: I believe she's absent.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. No. Marta Cabral.
[Unidentified]: No.
[Jenny Graham]: Joan Bowen is absent. Ken Lord. No. Libby Brown. No. Marissa Desmond is absent. Maria Dorsey. No. Brian Hilliard. No. Emily Lazzaro. No. Paul Malone is absent. Nicole Morell is absent. Aaron Olapade. No. Luke Preissner. Yes. 1 in the affirmative. 9 in the negative. 5 absent. The motion fails. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. By Emily. Is there a second? Seconded. By Luke. I will call the roll one more time. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. I think she's absent. She is absent. Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marty Cabral. Yes. Joan Bonifacent. Ken Lord is absent. Ken Lord. You're joking. I'm kidding. No. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond is absent. Bria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. No. Emily Lazzaro. Yes. Paul Malone is absent. Nicole Morell is absent. Aaron Lopate. Yes. Luke Preissner. Yes. Tan in the affirmative.
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