AI-generated transcript of MHS Building Project Community Forum #3

[Will Pipicelli]: We are all set to go on the tech side of things whenever you're ready to kick us off, Matt. Great.

[Matt Rice]: Oh, which Matt? That's the other question.

[Matt Gulino]: I can kick us off. All right. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our third community meeting for the Medford High School building project. We've made some pretty good progress since the last time we met, so we wanted to give everybody an update on where we are and what's coming next. Before we do get going, there are translation services through both Zoom and if you are on YouTube, there also should be translation services. I will pause here quickly just to allow people to take a look at these instructions and have the opportunity to turn on any translation captions as needed. All right. Go to the next slide. All right, so like I said, we'll go over a quick schedule and kind of process update on where we are and where we're going. And then we'll hear from the SMMA on where we are with the different alternatives for the project. The last time we met, we were at 29 options. They have since been reduced down to six. So we wanted to highlight those six options and talk about how they will be developed in this current phase of the project. So looking at the schedule. So you can see where we are today. We are just over halfway through the feasibility study. The first phase of the feasibility study that was submitted to the MSBA, or the Massachusetts School Building Authority, was the Preliminary Design Program, or PDP. That was sent to them at the end of February. We are still waiting on their comments, but hope to have them back relatively soon. These comments are critical for the project team, as it will start to outline what the Massachusetts School Building Authority views as an ineligible portion of the building for reimbursement. So as we receive those comments, it will give us a lot of good information to further refine the design and better understand where we're heading in terms of reimbursement from the MSBA. In our current phase, the preferred schematic report Um, as I had mentioned, we are studying six of the original 29 options, which we will take a look at. But during this phase, we start to refine those options. We'll start to get a bit more information on kind of site plans, updated models. We do start to look at what the building layout may look like. We don't get super deep into exactly where every single space is going to go, but really from a high level just to ensure that we can fit everything into the building that has been presented on the space summary. The preferred option or the preferred schematic report is due to the MSBA at the end of June. June 25th is the submission deadline. After that submission is done, we will attend a board of directors meeting with the MSBA. This meeting will confirm that the MSBA agrees with what the preferred option is, which will allow the team to proceed into the next phase of the project, which is schematic design. So after that board of directors meeting, which we are targeting for the end of August, We will proceed into schematic design, which will be for the one selected preferred option. This is when we'll get into a lot more detail. We'll actually start to put floor plans together. Building specifications will start to take more form. And it will be the first time that the project will perform a construction cost estimate. the estimates that we have received so far to date and will receive again during this preferred schematic report phase are very high level cost per square foot estimates. And it's really to give us a sense of how each of the options compare to one another. So the schematic design phase is super critical when it comes to understanding the final cost. and what the city will inevitably be asked to pass in the debt exclusion. After we proceed into schematic design, like I said, we'll do that high level or the more detailed cost estimate. We owe that submission to the MSBA in February. of 2027. They have about a two-month review period of that submission and then we go to another board of directors meeting in April of 2027. That board of directors meeting is super critical as it will set the project funding agreement which is the document that the MSBA will issue and it will confirm what the total project cost is It will confirm what the MSBA's reimbursement will be, and in turn, confirm what the tax impact to Medford residents will be. So we're still a little ways away from understanding the detailed numbers. We will certainly be pulling together projections as early as the end of the preferred schematic report, just so we can make sure that we're keeping everybody informed on where we're heading from a cost standpoint and a tax impact standpoint. Next slide. So I just kind of ran through some of these items, but just to touch on a little more detail on what the preferred schematic report will do. From an existing conditions analysis, we'll finalize all of the existing conditions reports. This is not just the building existing conditions, but the site conditions. and everything that surrounds the property so that we know exactly what is currently here and what potential permitting may be required for the project moving forward. This is also the phase where we, and when I say we, I mean the collective we, is when the educational plan will be finalized. This is a document through Medford Public Schools but it's the document that documents the present and future delivery of education for Medford High School. And then, as I had mentioned, the preferred solution, this will be selected by the building committee in June and will kind of guided the project into what that selected option is to move into schematic design. On the schematic design, just a bit more detail on that. So the final design program is documentation defining the project scope, not only the schematic design documents, drawings, and specifications noted below, but anything else that that may come with the project. From a phasing standpoint, understanding the potential use of modular trailers, everything that needs to be incorporated into the project to complete it successfully. The project scope and budget. Again, this is the agreement with the MSBA that will dictate the budget. and what the MSBA's participation will be. And it also weighs into the overall project costs, but we'll be finalizing the budget that needs to be submitted in schematic design, and that budget must be maintained through the end of the project. So that is a very critical phase in the project to really understand costs. And just to reiterate again, Uh, the project budget, uh, is not finally set, uh, until the end of schematic design. Again, we will certainly be doing projections and having additional feedback from the MSBA, uh, through these first two feasibility phases will really help us, uh, wrap our heads around, you know, what the MSBA is thinking, uh, and how that will shake out, um, uh, for overall project costs and, and the MSBA contribution. So I believe that is all I had for intro or for schedule slides. So I'll pass it off to Matt Rice and SMMA to highlight the alternatives that were selected at the March 23rd building committee meeting.

[Matt Rice]: Yeah, thank you Matt. So we're going to take a little bit of time in a second and run through just a high level overview of each of the selected six alternatives that came out of that March 23rd building committee meeting. It is nice to be able to look at them here all together on screen because it really points out the fact that there's a good set of options that's in front of the city at this point for consideration. This set of six options that was arrived at after a lengthy deliberation during the March 23rd meeting does represent different building approaches in terms of addition, renovation, and new construction. but also different locations on the overall site. So there are options that look at building on the parking lot, for instance, new construction, new construction on Edgerly Field, and then a variety of configurations of addition renovation. Also looking at a variety of an amount of renovation versus addition. So all those things are really on the table. It is a very diverse set of options that we have to work through and understand and Rounding out between the addition and the renovation option new constructions is the code repair option as well that is mandated by the MSBA in terms of being maintained through the PSR study in terms of the the alternatives that are under consideration at this point in time. And so we'll jump into those in a moment.

[Jenny Graham]: Before you jump in, can I just point out to everybody who is joining us that there is a Q&A feature, and if you have questions along the way, you can feel free to pop them into the Q&A and either we'll field them at the end, or if it's a quick answer, we're happy to do that sort of in real time. And if there's something needs a little bit more work in order to be able to answer that question, we'll circle back and publish all of the questions and answers afterwards. So just as we're going, please feel free to use that function so that we can be getting ready to feed questions to Matt at the end. Thank you.

[Matt Rice]: Thanks, Jane. I appreciate that. And just for full disclosure in terms of my screen real estate that I'm dealing with right now, I don't have the Q&A up. I'm just trying to see the entirety of the screen. So feel free if there is seems like there is a quick question that comes up and we want to do a response in line. Happy to do that. Just someone will need to jump in and interrupt me as we go. So. As we move forward, we also want to talk a little bit about what we'll be doing, what we are doing during the course of the PSR feasibility study phase and how that differs from the PDP feasibility study phase that we just completed. And this is going to be a little bit of forecasting. This is a lot of words that we have up on the slides right now. I have another slide in a moment that'll just give you some quick visuals. to indicate what some of these things are, because I think as architects, sometimes we just assume that everyone understands what a site plan is and what a floor plan is. But let me describe them a little bit in terms of these different exhibits that we'll be developing as we go forward, and then I'll give you some visuals to follow that up. So the first bullet item here is alluding to the fact that we're going to have more detailed floor plan drawings as we move forward into this next stage of the feasibility study. So previously what we had were really just overall block diagrams that were looking at a balance of square footages that we would be building, either new construction or renovation construction. And that was the level of detail that is appropriate for that PDP study when we have 29 different options that we're looking at. We don't have the ability to get into more detail. Now that we're down to six, we actually have the ability to go in and start laying out different program spaces at the sizes that they are programmed and understand where they will fall in the building, what spaces are adjacent to other spaces. This is going to help us really make sure that we're validating that the educational plan and all the feedback that we've been hearing during visioning meetings, community input has all been represented in an actual building as it comes together. So we'll actually be able to see in two dimensions or looking down at the building these floor plans, as well as have an understanding of basic circulation patterns. We don't get all the way into the finite level of detail in terms of locating every single toilet room or every single small office, but the big parts and pieces are going to be identifiable on these floor plans that we put together. Additionally, we're going to be putting together building section drawings, and if a floor plan is a horizontal cut through the building, a section drawing is a vertical cut through the building. It allows us to illustrate and develop what the different floor elevations are in the building going up and what those floor-to-floor heights are between the different levels. because that will inform the cost estimating as we move forward. So it's an additional level of detail that we can give, specificity that we can give to the cost estimating process. In addition to looking at the vertical relationships within the building, we're also going to be looking at the vertical relationships between the building and the site. As we know, the site has a lot of topography to it, a lot of grade change from Winthrop Street all the way up to Edgerly Field, and we need to make sure that the building is well connected into the surrounding site. The site plan drawings themselves will be developed to a much higher level of detail than they were previously. Previously, from a site perspective, because there were so many different options, we were looking at percentages of different finished materials on the site primarily, so without a specific layout being considered. What we will be moving on to now is really looking at the different site program elements, so parking lots, fields, the building location, as well as drives around the building, and understanding how all those different things interact, planning out traffic patterns, and really trying to understand how we can alleviate some of the congestion that occurs currently on the site today. In addition to looking at the programmatic elements from a site perspective, we're also going to be looking at that grading. And more specifically, what we're going to be doing is actually putting together some earthwork calculations as well as rock removal calculations. And we have a note in there as required, because we are still finishing up over this coming week, our geophysical survey, which is actually going to be a projection down to understand sort of where that rock surface is. Below the finished grade that we see when we drive and walk around the site today. We couldn't do that any earlier because the ground was frozen and apparently the. The ground penetrating radar that they use to do that really cannot function unless the ground is thawed. But luckily today we got a nice warm day and a past couple, so we should be good next week to get that information. And that'll help with those rock removal calculations as well, which again will feed to the cost estimators and give us an additional level of detail. We're also going to be putting together phasing diagrams that are going to be illustrating how we will be both building new additions and new buildings and then tearing down the existing building and any interim phases that may occur in between. If we have temporary portions of the building that are new construction put up, if we have modular classroom buildings where those fit into the overall phasing, So there's going to be a graphic illustration of that so that everyone in the community and school included can understand the process of getting from point A to point B in terms of project completion. But also it's going to give the estimators again a little bit more detail and understanding about how long each of those phases are and how the parts and pieces come together. And then lastly, the item that we've noted here is the development of a high level life cycle cost analysis to understand sort of the operational differences in terms of energy consumption and operational carbon emissions from how the building is actually going to be functioning. So what the HVAC system requires, the lighting system, the electrical systems at a very high level at this point. And then we're also going to be combining that operational carbon assessment with an embodied carbon assessment, and that gives us a total carbon assessment so that we can look at sort of the value of maintaining, for instance, the existing structure in the building and some of the options that maintain all of it or maintain some of it. So we're going to have that vision into the project as well that we weren't able to do with the larger set of options. So again, these are just some quick visuals to give you a sense of what we may be looking at as we move forward. Some of these are from our project as we've been working on things and pulling things forward. Some of them are from other reference projects and it's just a little bit of like a visual dictionary to look at. Across the top here are a sample of More detailed floor plans illustrating different programmatic spaces and the different colors as we go through. There will be a legend. It will be very clear in terms of what spaces are next to what. This is really here just for a visual, not necessarily to get into the detail of what those are, because those are still evolving. The bottom left-hand corner here is just a table of the late cycle cost analysis. This is going to be a dollars assumption over the course of the operational period that we're studying for the building, which I think is 60 years, but Martine and our team will definitely get into that a little bit more detail once we actually put this together. In the center there is an example of a phasing diagram showing how you move from an existing building to a new building. Existing building upper left hand corner to the bottom right hand corner. So that will be accompanied by durations in addition to sort of showing it graphically. And then the bottom right-hand corner is a more developed site plan. So that will start to show, again, things like fields, parking lots, access drives around, as well as entry points into the building. So we can understand all the various programs that have direct exterior access needs, how those will start to be configured. So that's a little bit of a forecasting of what to look forward to. And then I'm going to now pivot back and just talk a little bit about the six different options that are here. And I'll preface this by saying that on the project website and I think on the district YouTube site as well, there are a series of discussions between Jenny and myself that happened after the last building committee meeting that get into a little bit more detail of these different options as well. So if there's more information that you're looking for that you don't have the opportunity to ask a question for here, hopefully we can answer all the questions, but If you want a little bit more information, you're welcome to look at those videos. There is a separate video for each one of the options as well as an overview video and one that talks about the topic of modular classrooms as well. So that's good information to access after if that's of use. So I'm going to start into the options. Actually, let me take a pause for a second before I do that and just see if there are any of those quicker questions that I might be able to answer up front before I dive in here.

[Jenny Graham]: Questions yet, Matt?

[Matt Rice]: Okay. Maybe I'll just generate the questions here at this point in time. So again, this is, it's going to be a high level overview of what each of these options are. Hopefully people have had a chance to see these slides that really came out of the process through the March 23rd building committee meeting, but I'm going to try and just give a summary overview of each one of these, just to put them in context. So this first one is Alternative A.1. This is our code upgrade and repair option. Again, this is the one that is mandated by the MSBA to proceed through into the PSR phase for comparative purposes. This is really intended as a baseline to establish a baseline understanding of what it will take to actually, let's say, fix the building. And when I say fix, it's really alluding to the fact that we need to bring the building up to code. We need to repair the things in the building that are broken. And when we talk about code compliance, We're not talking just about building code. We're also talking about accessibility code. We're talking about energy codes as well. So this particular option, what it would involve, if you imagine yourself walking into that existing building, we have to replace the entirety of the mechanical system, the entirety of the electrical system, because those do not meet current energy codes. so lighting outlets need to be replaced. When we move to the structural code, this is where we actually have to put in seismic braces to brace the existing structural frame in a way to bring it up to code again. In order to do that, we will have to demolish existing walls And for the purposes of this particular option, what we're dictated to do is actually build those same walls that we have to demolish to put a brace in back in the same exact place. That we are not allowed to reconfigure any of the interior space here unless it's associated with meeting, say, accessibility requirements. So toilet rooms that are not currently ADA or MAAB compliant. That's American Disabilities Association and the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board. If we have toilet rooms that are not compliant with those accessibility requirements, we'd have to potentially modify the walls in those spaces. The same for the lecture halls that have tiered floors that have no ramps to the upper levels. We potentially have to decrease seating capacity in those rooms to be able to insert either a ramp or potentially a limited use elevator to get up to those back elevations. So there are some modifications, but we're not allowed to make programmatic modifications to the building. If we just keep going on the notion of what we're fixing though, the exterior envelope of this building is completely not compliant with energy code. So that means that we would be replacing all the exterior fenestration, the windows, the doors, as well as adding insulation to the exterior walls, either by adding something to the exterior or to the interior, a complete re-roofing, replacement of insulation to match what we need to comply with energy code. So really a complete reskinning of the entirety of the building. And even when we move out to the site, the parking lot that currently have accessible spaces, but they don't have an accessible path from those spaces up to the building, nor an accessible cross slope where the parking spaces are, all that would have to be repaved, regraded to be able to correct that. So when we look at this dollar value of $437 million, it is a large sum, but it is because there is so much that needs to be fixed with the existing building just as is. And the important thing to remember with this $437 million is that unless this code repair upgrade option met the educational plan for the project that was developed by the district, none of that would be reimbursable by the MSBA. That would be entirely on the city of Medford taxpayers to fund the cost of this. And this, the code repair upgrade does not meet the educational plan that has been all the way through in terms of various aspects of the educational plan, there is not alignment here with what the scope of renovations would be. Just starting from the baseline that there is 522,000 square feet here to meet the educational plan, there is more than another 100,000 square feet of space beyond that that's needed. But even in that space that exists, there are many things about it that are not acceptable right now from an educational plan standpoint. So that is our code upgrade option. Again, this is a baseline that's here for a general understanding of what is involved with repairing and upgrading the building. So alternative B.1.2 was the first of our addition renovation options. And this option was selected by the building committee really with the understanding that it was one of the options that preserved as much of the existing building structure as possible. And that's important from a sustainability environmental perspective because it's trying to leverage the embodied carbon that is within that existing structure. And so that embodied carbon, when we use that term, what we're saying is that back in 1970, when this building was built, there was a lot of energy expended. There was a lot of carbon put into the atmosphere in the creation of the concrete frame, and there is steel frame as well in this existing building. Um, and what we don't want to do is just necessarily throw all that away. Um, and so this, this, um, option is looking to preserve as much of that as possible, um, in the future building moving forward. Um, there is square footage that is added to this building as well, um, which is in the form of two stories, um, up above, um, both the central B wing, um, as well as the D wing, which is where the existing. cafeterias are in a portion of the V wing as well, the vocational wing off to the east. But this option does have the ability, even though this is reusing the footprint of the existing building, we would have the option, the opportunity here and would be reconfiguring the interior space of the building in a significant way so that we can meet the educational plan. So that's a key distinction between this option where it looks a lot like, if I flip back to the code repair option, you can see in both the plan and that three-dimensional diagram, that there's a lot of similarities, other than the fact that we're building up with new addition space here, again, to meet that larger square footage of what we're looking for. Just some other sort of salient points here as we go through. This is one of the options that is currently envisioned to have 56 modular classrooms required to build it. And that's really because the fact that we're building right on top of where everybody is. So this would be a very time-consuming way of sort of moving around the existing building Taking over a section of it, renovating it, and then letting students and faculty occupy it. But while each section is under construction, we will need modular classrooms to be able to give them some place to teach and learn. And so the number 56 modular classrooms is really driven by whenever we're touching the C wing or the B wing is where we have our highest density of academic classrooms that we have to replicate. Also worth keeping in mind that when we are touching the vocational wing that there's a considerable impact to students in that wing. In some cases we can build like a double size modular classroom to allow students and teachers to work in those spaces. Some of the CTE programs like the programming and web design program might be able to work in a larger size modular classroom. but auto technology, culinary arts, those are tougher to create temporary modular classrooms to accommodate. So for those students, when their section of the building is being renovated in this scenario, there's the potential that they would have to be offsite, potentially in a community partner location where they could have space that's adequate for instruction. So there's transportation, there's loss on learning time, there's impact to educational experience as well. that needs to be considered for those CTE students. And I did not mention specifically the modular classrooms for the A, 8.1 option as well, but it is very similar, actually the same in terms of the number of classrooms required, because we would be moving around the building, renovating it in a similar way in addition, in this case, to adding stories on top. I'm going to shift to the C2.2. I'm sure there's some topics I can come back to if folks have questions, but let me try to do this as in a quick of an overview fashion as possible. And then we can just really respond to where questions lie. So alternative C2.2 is the second of our addition renovation options that move forward. This one has a C prefix because the C addition and renovation options really focused on trying to save and renovate the collection of spaces that are sort of towards the northern end of the building, the athletic type spaces that would include here the pool, the gymnasium as well as the larger PE spaces that are located directly across the hall from the gymnasium being the gymnastics gym as well as the fitness center. And that renovated square footage is combined with new addition space that would supplement it and fill out the rest of the program. This particular option looked to create that addition off to the west of the existing building in terms of building into the hillside and on top of the football practice field as well. It does push a little bit as well north towards Edgeley Field. And you can see here that, well, Edgeley Field currently has two multi-purpose soccer lacrosse fields on it right now, there would only be space to accommodate one up there. So the rest of the field program would have to be accommodated to the southern portion of the site here. So that's the general configuration of what C2.2 would be. This is planned out right now as a five-story building. I think it's a Interesting to note, for any of these options that start to work themselves into the steeper portion of the hillside as you work towards the northern end of the site, that five stories is not necessarily going to be perceptible in any one location from around the site. So if you're in the high portion of the site, you may have four stories, you may have three stories that you're going to see rising above this highest point of the site. From down below, we're not necessarily planning to go five stories straight up in this particular location. So we're trying to work into the hillside as we're thinking about how the programs are laying out as we go forward. In terms of the modular classrooms that are required here, 56 are currently planned in this option as well. This is primarily because this building footprint is touching on the existing C wing, which is again where one of the largest concentrations of classrooms lies. As we're moving forward looking at this particular option, and really with all of the options aside from A and B, the A.1 and the B.1.2 options, where we don't have the ability to sort of work around the existing building, we are looking for ways to minimize or eliminate the need for the modular classrooms. That's something that we've heard consistently from community feedback, and even from the educators as well, that trying to find some way of of alleviating or eliminating those is really a positive thing in a lot of different ways. So that's something that we are studying as we're moving these things forward, all the alternatives, again, in the C and the D options. I'll take a second and talk about fields here as well and sort of overall site program. Again, we did not have the ability with the complete set of 29 options to get into a detailed site layout for every one of them. But what you can see here is more or less what each of the options can accommodate in terms of overall site program. So we are showing again one field remaining at Edgerly in terms of a competition field, a practice field adjacent to that, and then the potential for fields down in the southern portion of the site. If a synthetic turf field in this case is going to be present, the parking, because you don't see a large parking lot at grade in this visual would have to be below the field potentially or as a parking garage that's illustrated here, a vertical above grade. We certainly will have the option of looking at and talking about what it would mean to do at-grade parking. and then at-grade fields adjacent to it, it just means that we'll have less potentially field space as part of that. So we really need to talk through and think about that cost-benefit analysis to say what is the priority and how much is affordable in terms of that field space as we go forward. And that's a question to ask for every single one of these options as we look at them. So the C3.4 option, again, is one of these C addition renovation options that focuses on the preservation of the athletic spaces. In this particular scenario, we're looking at just the gymnasium and the pool being renovated spaces. That section in front in terms of the existing D wing would get recreated as part of the addition space through here. This particular option is a four-story set of massing and really that's because as the buildings become shorter, they become a little bit wider on the site. You can see that there's a lot of similarities in terms of where that C3.4 option is being built to the prior C2.2. We're still looking at trying to bridge between the high and low sections of the site. We're building a little bit into that hillside on the western edge of the site and towards the practice field. We think we do potentially have the option to salvage a little bit of this practice field, the football practice field up here as part of this option. but you can see there's a little bit more compromising of the field space that's to the north as well. And again, our best field sort of largest contiguous area is really towards the southern side of the site. So this would have same sort of pros and cons in terms of looking at different alternatives for parking down in this particular location. Again, modular classrooms, when we're talking about this one, is really being driven by the fact that this particular wing of the building is, in this case, overlapping on the existing C wing. And again, we will be looking at ways to alleviate or eliminate the need for the modular classrooms with this particular option as we go forward. So we're going to shift gears now to the two new construction options that were chosen to proceed. And again, very different locations on the site, which was very much intentional, I believe, from the building committee to provide real clear options in terms of studying the pros and cons, challenges and opportunities associated with these two locations of building new. One thing to keep in mind when we do build new is that we are allowed to build a smaller gymnasium space than the existing one that would be remaining and renovated in any of the B or the C options, or I guess the A option as well. So the existing gymnasium is currently 30,000 square feet. we are allowed to build to a maximum size of 18,000 square feet in a gymnasium in a new build through the MSBA program. So that's one thing to keep in mind. And then the other nuance of the all new construction that we have to focus in on is the fact that the pool building needs to be all new as well if we're building all new construction and must be a physically detached and separate project from the high school building itself. So in this particular option, it is shown sort of contiguous to the building. It'll be more clear in the next option, the D2.1, what I mean when I say that the pool building needs to be separate. So it also needs to be, in addition to a separate project, it needs to be a separate debt override vote for approving funding for the pool. We can put those two ballot questions on the same ballot, but they have to be individual questions so that the voters can weigh in on those two decisions in isolation. So things to keep in mind with these options as we go. When we're looking at building down here on the parking lot site, primarily, there is the challenge of the amount of space that we have to build with. It is a little bit more constrained. In this scenario, you might think that we wouldn't need any classrooms because if we're building on the parking lot, we're away from the existing structure. The challenge is that if we're just limiting ourselves to the parking lot itself, there's really not enough physical area on the site to build all the things that we need to put into the school, as well as provide all of the ground floor access around the perimeter of the building. So you can see that we've stretched out a little bit here to the north, and we are overlapping in this case on the southern half of the vocational wing, on the B wing, as well as the A wing. So that's the reason why this modular classroom number is larger, because we're affecting both the B wing, which has a lot of classrooms, as well as some of the vocational spaces that we will need to provide some space for. So that's sort of a snapshot of why this is having some additional temporary space needs associated with it. The height of this building also is notable because this is one of the taller options that was moved forward being up to six stories. And again, that's just given the fact that we're trying to still stay as compact as possible on the overall site. And so it's driving us up in terms of a number of stories within the building. And there was definitely some thoughts put forward from the building committee about challenges associated with students moving up and down through a building in terms of getting to classes on time. And just sort of what the impact on the sense of community is when we're sort of that stratified vertically throughout the building.

[Will Pipicelli]: Matt, before you go on to the next option, we just have a few questions that are asked by multiple members of the community. So I just wanted to make it easier just to address them now. To start, the pool, not as easily defined in this option, but can you explain kind of where that would be in this design roughly?

[Matt Rice]: I can, yeah. And I'll just, I'm going to jump forward to the next one just to illustrate what I was saying. It's easier to see this as a separate pool building in this particular image, separated out from the building. In this particular option, it would be, and you can see it in the three-dimensional diagram as well, sort of tucked between these two wings. There would need to be like a physical separation there in between the main school building and the pool building as well. We are clarifying that moving forward as well, because we understand that's a little bit confusing to sort of say it needs to be separated and then it's sort of shown attached. So again, completely understand the question. Hopefully that's clear in terms of the response.

[Will Pipicelli]: Yep. And then the next thing, kind of similar to the pool, but in terms of obviously like some of the physical fitness spaces that we currently have in the building, such as like the gym, the weight room, the fitness center, those would all be new in this design as well, correct?

[Matt Rice]: Correct, yes. All those spaces that are up here are gone in this particular scenario. So while we could rebuild those spaces, they will probably be smaller in terms of the overall size of what we're allowed to build from, say, a gymnastics gym, which might have to be termed something more along the lines of a multipurpose room. And then a fitness center is a typical program. But again, what is there today currently is larger than what we would be building as new.

[Will Pipicelli]: Perfect. All right. And then I think we're ready to go. And then we'll answer some of the questions after our last design option. All right.

[Matt Rice]: And we are almost there as well. I've lost track of the time. So I can't tell if I'm dragging things on too much or going too quickly. But feel free to course correct me here if I go. All right, so our last new construction option or in our second new construction option that got moved forward is the D2.1 option. So this is building new on Edgerly Field primarily, and you can see that this building form does you'll have to trust me that it does come a little bit down the hill as well and not just on the footprint of Edgerly Field. But generally what we're trying to do here is build on a clean area of the site. This is a little bit larger than the parking lot down to the southern area. So this is one of the options that we have confidence even initially when we're doing our big picture looks that there were zero modular classrooms. buildings needed as part of this construction approach. That's really, again, because we're building away. All the construction activity would happen up here. The building remains in operation down here until the new building is complete. We do a big move up into the new building, and then the demolition of the building starts down here, and then site work is completed after the building is demolished. It is the cleanest picture in terms of how the phasing will work. And really, I think the things to understand about this particular option in terms of how we're building, again, what we were saying that six stories is the height of this particular building. And when we're talking about six stories in the parking lot, we're coming from a flat plane and we're just going directly up. When we're on Edgerley Field and because we're coming down the hill, this is not going to be a scenario where we have six stories, say, from Edgerley Field rising up. Some of those lower stories are actually going to start down lower on the hill. and step up the hillside as they go. So potentially the perimeter perception of the building may just be a four-story building from this higher section as we move towards the higher portion of the site. Other things to note here just in terms of site work that's involved. Because we are building on Edgeley Field, we're taking away sort of that maybe the most valuable existing field resource on the site overall. So we're going to lose that in terms of this location. So in this case, we are forced to look at the southern side of the site and figure out how to reuse that area to try to replicate or increase or decrease, I guess, in concept. the field program. But we do have a large area at that point to work with in terms of trying to balance either at-grade parking, structured parking, fields over parking, or fields at-grade. All those things are still in play. In this case, we are showing again the standalone pool building that really has a lot of different possibilities in terms of where it could be located in this particular option. It could be shown closer to the school building to facilitate school access as shown here. It could also be shown on a different area of the site, maybe free and clear of any other buildings to potentially facilitate community access by making it closer to the entry drive off of Winthrop Street. That is something that we can think about with the new construction options that we can't necessarily consider with the addition renovation options if we're renovating the pool. So I think that that's a pretty good overview of where things are. I'm definitely happy to answer some questions and I'm also happy to pull some other folks in if there's others that maybe the answers are better coming from when we get to them.

[Will Pipicelli]: No, thank you. I think it's really helpful that you were able to explain all those in such great detail. We've got some questions about specific designs. We've got some questions about some overall, but I think I'll start with the question. Dr. Lucy or Jenny or Ken, I think one of you might be best able to answer this one. So in terms of the comprehensive school, There's a question of can you help explain what additional design flexibility and cost savings would be afforded to design if the renovation or rebuild was limited solely to the high school and not other community services? So maybe you'd be able to kind of answer what necessarily means that we're a comprehensive high school and what would be the potential effect of only focusing on the academic side and functions of the building.

[Suzanne Galusi]: I'm happy to just talk a little bit about the word comprehensive. Comprehensive is used to describe Medford High School as having both academic courses as well as CTE, which is career tech education. That's our vocational programming. So when we say the word comprehensive, not all high schools are comprehensive because not all high schools have vocational programming. To date, we have 15 CTE programs. increasing that. So by the end of this project, we will be adding four more. We plan on adding two more before this project comes to fruition. That is plumbing and that is information systems. But when the project through this project, we will also be adding the HVAC part of plumbing and we will be adding a dental program. So I think it's important that, yes, Medford High School, this project is very unique. Currently, right now, in addition to the fact that Medford High School is a comprehensive high school, we also have a lot of community-facing programs within our buildings. So we have the MFN, the Medford Family Network, is housed within Medford High School. That is a citywide program that provides support and wraparound services to children and families in Medford from birth to age eight. We also have our municipal daycare that is Kids Corner. It provides daycare opportunities for our staff, but it also provides daycare opportunities for municipal employees on the city side, as well as some community members and some Medford students. We also have our registration, which we call our Welcome Center, that's also housed at Medford High School. So families that are moving to Medford or starting their children's journey as a Medford student, they would come to Medford High School in order to register their children for the schools. We also have Medford High School also houses the currently the district and central leadership that is inclusive of our facilities department our IT department our human resources and our finance department as well as some some other central office Myself assistant superintendents as well as administrators that provide K-12 plus academic leadership within Medford Public Schools. And as many of us, and as the questions have said, Medford High School also has a pool, which is very community facing and used by a lot of members of the community and even outside of the Medford community. I'm not quite sure if I've, I think I've captured them all, but I just wanted to make sure I spoke about the distinction between comprehensive being really all about the high school, the education that students receive at the high school, both on the academic side and the vocational side, and then in addition to that, the community-facing programs that currently exist at Medford High School. I think through this work and in our educational plan, the other two pieces that we have that don't exist currently at Medford High School but that we would like to see expand is by bringing our preschool programming that's housed at two of our elementary schools, currently the Missittuck and the Brooks, bringing that up to Medford High School with Medford Family Network and our Municipal Daycare Kids Corner and creating an early childhood center. By doing that, we would be able to co-locate all of those programs. We would be able to share resources. We would be able to expand the current capacity of those programs and offer more support and services to the community and to our families. And then additionally to that, we have our therapeutic day program, Curtis Tufts High School. That is located in South Medford by Tufts Pool and Tufts Park. We would be also bringing that program up here to co-locate with some other programs that would allow, again, for the pooling of resources and the really true inclusion of all of our students so that our Curtis Tufts students also would have some increased opportunities for enrichment and education. Happy to answer any other questions that come up.

[Jenny Graham]: I just wanted to add to that, that if we were to not do some of those things, it's not quite that simple. Those programs exist today and they have a home today. Many of those programs find their home actually in the high school building, so we cannot unhouse programming without some place for it to go. And I think sort of in related fashion when we are able to move the Curtis Tufts program here onto this campus that will vacate the Curtis Tufts school which is the property of the City of Medford and the city will have to Contend with how they plan to either sell or repurpose that building. So those discussions are already beginning and happening with the mayor and the council and others and. You know, there's lots of options there and I think, um. exploring everything from selling the building and using the proceeds to acknowledging that Medford does not have lots of land and space for the kinds of programming that is desired in the community. And could that building be a home to something else? All is very much on the table. So we can't just simply say we're not going to do these things. Those would be Those would be programming cuts or relocation decisions, so that they're substantially more complicated than just sort of this group saying, we don't want to build a space for it. There's much more conversation about if that is the case, like, where do those programs go and how do we carry on things like kindergarten registration and Where do we put our central office staff? Those are all real things that's not really optional for us to say. We're just not going to do those things anymore. So all of these things that currently exist in the high school need a home in the future, unless we're making an academic decision to eliminate a program at this moment. There aren't any programs that we're considering for elimination think more as Dr Lucy has described. There's a clear desire in the community and among the student population. that our vocational offering continue to expand. So that's sort of where we're at. And that does make this project big and comprehensive and complicated. So I think those are all fair questions and lots to come in terms of how all of that gets decided.

[Will Pipicelli]: Great, thank you so much. Next major topic, I think, is modulars. I know Jenny and Matt spent a whole video as part of a video series talking about modulars. But we just got some questions that I think can be clarified. So when you give out a number, say it's 56 modulars needed for a design, is that a net number? Or would they all be used at the same time? And how would they be used? Would they be used by CVE spaces? Would they be used for maybe more traditional academic classes, such as an English or a math? how would they be used throughout the day?

[Matt Rice]: All right, so the first part of the question in terms of when they get used, right? So what we look at is sort of like the peak need for the modular classrooms during the course of the construction, regardless of which phase that we would be looking at. As a for instance, there are none of the phasing scenarios that we looked at that assume that we could take offline both the B wing and the C wing at the same time. Because that would peak the number of modular classrooms up to like above 100, right? And 56 or 76, these are already very, very high numbers of modular classrooms. that we have to accommodate for. So we didn't, that was a tipping point to say we could not necessarily look at the B wing and the C wing at the same time moving forward. But there is a potential that they could be used most typically as like a standard English classroom or math classroom. So one temporary modular classroom module would equal say a typical classroom that would be in the existing building compensate for that. But there is the potential to put some CTE programs in there as well. But because of the limited size, they are sized more towards a typical classroom, we would have to combine two of them into a larger space. There would be no wall in between, just to provide adequate space for the instructional activities that might go on in some of the CTE programs. And again, that would be limited to programs that don't necessarily have sort of large specific equipment needs, like the art of technology, like the culinary arts, programs that you could put in as well. I had mentioned, oh geez, what did I mention earlier in terms of the program that could go in there? I keep going back to program and web development, but other programs like biotechnology, we can definitely do science labs inside a modular classroom building. Um, as part of that, if that was necessary and it would be in some cases when we're renovating the B wing, um, we would have to have some ability to put science. Um, so there are, there is some ability to do both traditional classrooms as well as CTE or specialized spaces. Did I get all parts of that question?

[Will Pipicelli]: Well, I guess the question too, is when you say like 56, would they all be used at once or would they be, um, they would all be used at once. Yeah. Yeah. And then option D is obviously the most expensive that we've has one of our final six design. Can you talk about how the maybe why that is so much especially with it as it relates to the height of the building? Because I know we've talked about that in some other meetings that we've had. Yep.

[Matt Rice]: So when we go above four or five stories, it's actually it's tied to the height of the highest level above grade in terms of when it rises up. So sometimes it can be triggered at four stories. Sometimes it's triggered at five stories. But there's a premium on the construction costs that's related to the high rise buildings in the building code. which requires us to put in, just as any sort of high-rise office building, it's trying to provide additional life safety improvements for the occupants, in this case, the students and the teachers within the building. And so, for instance, there has to be an improved smoke evacuation system within the stairwells. There's something that's called a fire command center. that we have to build into the first floor of the building and provide access to all those different smoke controls. And then we end up having to make the building itself a little bit more robust in terms of the stair towers to make sure that they're more solid and able to withstand impact. A lot of these code implications came into play after the World Trade Center. And so that's what's driving a lot of the thought process behind sort of these building code improvements and sort of cost premiums that would come into play. There's some other things that play into the larger dollar value here, though, besides just the building height itself. One is the number of modular classrooms that's there that is increased. The duration is actually pretty in line with what a lot of the others are. But it's also potentially the site work in terms of having the field over the top of the parking as well that is sort of driving the cost up on this one.

[Will Pipicelli]: And then, so just because maybe options that don't have any modulars, but that could also mean longer construction time, which would, of course, increase the cost, right?

[Matt Rice]: It could, yeah, and that's something that as we move forward and we're starting to look at different methodologies of eliminating the modules, if we start looking at taking a building like this and phasing the construction of the different parts and pieces so that we can use, say, a phase one portion of this new construction instead of modular classroom buildings, it just means that we can't do those two things at the same time. So we would be adding durations in terms of overall construction length to this particular option, potentially as a way of trying to reduce the number of modular classrooms and reduce the cost there. There may be increased what we call general conditions and general requirements. Essentially, it's the staffing cost for the contractors to be on the site for an extended amount of time. They have personnel that they're paying, equipment that they're renting, and all that sort of has a cost implication as well.

[Will Pipicelli]: All right, I got two more construction related questions for now. One should be a short answer, but for when you say fields that are currently labeled as existing, those would be new fields, correct? Like resurfaced?

[Matt Rice]: Correct. Yeah, they would be renovated in place. And so while we haven't got to that level of specificity previously, but we will want to for the PSR estimates that we get to, the assumption right now is that we'd be replacing in kind. So the two edgerly fields that are synthetic turf right now would get completely redone, renovated in place as new synthetic turf fields. the existing grass fields, the practice fields would be existing grass fields. But again, we can talk about modifications to those existing conditions as we go forward.

[Will Pipicelli]: And then we also got a question about phasing. This is specifically directed to C2.2, but I think it kind of applies to all of them. So can you envision new construction occurring while old structures continue operation? Could this defer demolition of the old school until a new school is ready for students?

[Matt Rice]: So certainly there can be new construction going on in very close proximity to existing buildings that are in operation. Safety is the paramount concern when we do that, but I will say we do it on a lot of projects. We have projects that get as close as like 10 or 15 feet from an existing exterior wall of a building that's currently occupied. to a new structure that's going up right next to it. It is a fairly typical situation. And so there's strategies that can be leveraged to make sure that it is a safe condition for students and staff, as well as the construction team in terms of getting everything built in a way that still tries to optimize the phasing path forward so that we're not adding more phases on maybe than necessary. What was the second part of the question though, Will?

[Will Pipicelli]: Could this defer demolition of the old school until a new school is ready for students?

[Matt Rice]: So like... Yeah, and so that is the strategy as we look for ways of trying to again mitigate or eliminate the number of modular classrooms with say this particular option. We look at can we take down just a small section of this as opposed to the entirety of the C wing potentially? to allow this new construction to happen and then use a portion of this or all of this as that modular swing space if we had to moving forward? Or can we get all this built at the same time? One of the interesting things, just in the nuances of looking at the phasing, is also the consideration of where the existing kitchen and the cafeteria is and how we handle food service on a temporary basis. Because at a certain point in any of these options, if there was a kitchen that lives here right now, we need to keep that online and working until we can get a new kitchen. up and working in the new addition itself. So in addition to just classrooms, there's other sort of critical operational pieces of the existing school that we need to account for in terms of the overall phasing as we go.

[Will Pipicelli]: Thank you. We got one question about the project timeline, which we actually talked about in an internal meeting today. So I'll answer this one out loud. Can the project timeline shown on the project be updated to better reflect the construction duration? It seems that they're all hovering over 50 months. The timeline shows two years. Phasing will allow some portions of the new space to open. The way it's presented, it's not accurately presenting the full duration of the project. To answer that question, Kerry, yes, we kind of thought the same thing during our internal meeting today. And as we work with the project team to further develop these design options and timelines, we'll be able to better represent that in the coming weeks. So stay tuned for that. And then we also got a question around Curtis-Tufts and using that facility potentially. So if, let's just say, the Curtis-Tufts were to move to the high school and all the other community programs the central admin got moved to the Curtis-Tufts, that would essentially be two separate projects that would be to write, they couldn't really occur concurrently or kind of.

[Matt Rice]: Do you want me to take that one, Will? Yeah, you do. Maybe I'll offer from a construction perspective and then maybe from an operational perspective. If that scenario were to take place, we would have to wait until the new space for Curtis-Tufts is built inside the high school to move them out of there before you could do anything in improvements at the Curtis-Tufts building. There might even have to be interim space because at that point, we would need to accommodate, say, if there was a central office that was moving into there. They couldn't move in immediately. There's challenges in the existing Curtis Tufts building right now. Specifically on the accessibility side, there's no elevator in that building. Toilet facilities would have to be made more accessible as well and adapted to an office use as opposed to a school use that's in there right now. So there would be sort of compounding phasing considerations as well as and potentially some additional temporary space accommodations that would need to be made if we went down that path.

[Will Pipicelli]: Great, thank you. We got another question kind of about modular classrooms. Is the assumption, what is the number of students kind of in a modular classroom at a time? Is it kind of the same standard as it is in the classrooms that we use today? Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Rice]: So the Medford Public Schools policy for the high school is there's 25 students per class. And or if it's a lab, I think it may be 24. But we would have to accommodate that same number of students in a temporary modular classroom as we would in any other classroom space in the building.

[Will Pipicelli]: OK. And then I think a lot of the questions that we have, we've kind of already answered in various forms. So we'll see if there's any last questions that kind of trickle in. But maybe can we kind of talk about some of the upcoming meetings, maybe some of the things that will be kind of featured in the city throughout the next couple of weeks so we're not only talking to our Medford community in these community forums.

[Matt Rice]: Yep. Matt, do you want me to take this one or do you want to hop in here?

[Matt Gulino]: Uh, sorry. I was typing some answers into the, into some of the questions. Um, yeah, I, I can run through this quick. Um, so yeah, we have quite a few meetings coming up. Uh, the next critical building committee meeting, uh, is on April 27th. This will be a very critical meeting to review programming square footages and the MSBA PDP comments, which will give us a lot of insight into what they are considering as eligible or ineligible spaces. So that will be a very good meeting to attend if you are able to. Moving into the month of May, And I'll stick just on the left side of the screen for a second to talk about the building committee meeting dates. So on May 20th, we will have another building committee meeting. At this point, we will have the updated comparative cost data from the two independent estimators. That is all going to be based on what the program square footage results in from that 427 meeting. So that will be a really good opportunity for both the building committee and anybody from the general public to hear what the updated cost information is. As we move further into May, we have a project update on May 27th. This will be kind of a continuation of the meeting on the 20th. and just continue to give project updates as we refine the options in the PSR phase. As we get into June, the June 10th meeting is when the building committee is scheduled to select what the preferred alternative is to proceed into schematic design. Again, that still needs to be submitted to the state in June. and then reviewed and approved by them so that we can proceed into schematic design for that preferred option. And then later in the month on June 18th, we will be seeking approval from the building committee to allow left field to submit the preferred schematic report to the MSBA, which will kick off their review period before we meet with them at the board of directors meeting on August 25th. On the community side of things, May 11th, we'll be holding another community forum. That will be our fourth one. And we do intend to hold that one in person like we did our second meeting. So please look out for that and come attend that if you're able to. And then we'll hold another meeting on June 3rd. This will be the first time that, aside from that building committee meeting, that will be sharing that updated cost information in a community forum format. So that will be another critical piece for anyone that is interested in seeing how the cost is shaking out in this phase of the project.

[Will Pipicelli]: Perfect. Thank you. And then in addition to all this, we'll also be at some events throughout our schools, throughout our city. We'll be at the Mississauga Celebration of Cultures tomorrow night. We'll be at Arabic Heritage, some celebration on Saturday. Patriots Day celebration on Monday. It's right next to Colleen's and other various events throughout the city and schools in the coming weeks. So if we don't have anything left, feel free to scan the QR code. I'll also put it in the chat with the survey. It should be just some of the options that you thought about. I'll make sure to put that in the chat as I'm speaking. And then the last effort highschoolproject.com for the latest updates on documents and all the resources regarding the project. Jamie, am I missing anything or we get to wrap up tonight?

[Jenny Graham]: Just had to find my unmute button. I think we're good for tonight. We will post all these answers as we collect them up. There's maybe a handful that we still need to answer and get put in writing and then we will. We will post them on our look at the videos that we did. Matt and I are getting to be old hats in front of our CTE film and production crew who have done an amazing, wonderful job once again with the videos that we posted around each of these options. So if you are hearing people saying that they weren't able to attend tonight and they only have a few minutes to spare, that might be another great place to look for information, pretty similar to what we presented tonight. So. Thank you all for joining us. This was great. And we will see you soon.