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Home My WebLink About2020-11-12-PBC-min Town of Lexington Permanent Building Committee op�J51775"N�c � A Q y 3 Permanent Members: Co-Chairman:Jon Himmel &Co-Chairman Dick Perry, Philip Coleman, 3 a Charles Favazzo, Carl Oldenburg, Peter Johnson, Celis Brisbin fk;� toy Project Specific Members: Fire Station: Robert Cunha &Joseph Sirkovich Hastings Elementary: Curt Barrentine &Andrew Clarke Visitors Center:Joel Berman & Peter Kelly PBC Minutes 11-12-20 Held Via Zoom 6PM Members present:Jon Himmel, Dick Perry. Carl Oldenberg. Peter Johnson, Chuck Favazzo, Phil Coleman, Celis Brizben Members of DAC and Liaisons from Other Committees noted were: Mark Sandeen, Suzie Barry, Steve Vincent, Chris Jonas, Brigitte Steins Staff members present: Mike Cronin, Dave Pinsonnault, Mark Barrett TBA Architects:Justin Humphries,A.Jamison Approval of Meeting Minutes Three sets of Meeting minutes were discussed; 1/9/20; 2/4/20; and 6/8/20. It was noted that comments received were incorporated and the minutes updated. With no other comments received a motion was made to approve the minute of 1/9/20, 2/4/20 and 6/8/20 as corrected. Motion was seconded and approved. Westview Cemetery Building project update. Justin Humphreys from TBA architects was present to provide an update on the status of the project. The current building design is approx. 4,100 sf of which approx. half of that square footage is garage space. The project is based upon the findings of a 2016 study that showed that the existing facility does not support the needs of the community, staff and daily operations that need to take place there. The overall cemetery site was shown to be only half developed and contain the existing building. A portion of the undeveloped section of the project, next to the existing animal control building and facing Westview Street, will be cleared to support the new building. Once complete and occupied the existing building can be removed and that area returned to cemetery use. The floor plans were reviewed. There were two aspects of the layout or design of the floor plan that were discussed. The first is that the building has three distinct areas or zones of use. Public/Visitor, Staff/Administrative and Back of house/field operations. The plan layout demonstrates these zones and helps define those spaces. The second Characteristic is the design of the feature wall the cuts thru the building and effectively sections the building into Front of house and back of house. This feature wall provides a visual element through the public space and continues through the administrative space. A prior comment on the floor plan was to maximize the use of daylight.TBA advised that plan adjustments had been made from that input. The building elevations were reviewed and it was discussed that the design elevations as presented were not yet fully updated to reflect the most current plan details such as fenestrations. The architect explained that given the start and stop history of the project various elements of the work are at different levels of completion as the project has had numerous points of adjustment. The Project Schedule slide was presented and showed a goal of 90%Construction Documents by December 2020, bidding by late January 2021, Construction start by March 2021 and completion by December 2021 with the Public works Cemetery staff moving in by the start of 2022. 201 BEDFORD STREET• LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02420 A Cost slide was reviewed and demonstrated Construction Costs and Contingencies but not project costs. The construction estimate was based upon a 3rd parry estimate from 1 year ago. The current construction cost of the building is projected at 2,900,000+/- against a 3,290,000 approved budget. Comments on costs included: • The total project costs should be portrayed not just construction. • TBA stated they had adjusted cost estimate line items to accommodate construction cost changes and that the construction escalation figure in the estimate totals was projected out to the mid-point of construction using a March 21 start. • PBC suggested that more detail is needed on how the construction escalation was calculated, how figures were escalated from the 2019 estimate. Following the presentation there were questions and discussion. It was discussed that there were different plans in the overall presentation and each one different. It was pointed out that the intent of the presentation was to show some of the overall development of the project/ plans and the current/final plan was identified for the group. Future presentations to only include current work. TBA reviewed the overall exterior design and some material colors which included dark red brick(purple tones) a warm dark bronze storefront and a silver grey corrugated metal panel A comment was made that the current exterior design gave the speaker the feel that there were 3 different buildings and there was little tying the whole facade together. Other commenters agreed with this thought and offered some ideas. • Update the elevations to the current floor plans so that fenestration is accurate. • Review how the Brick feature wall projects to the exterior wall, including it's height. • Review of how the remaining brick facade is treated on the elevations. • Review the color selections of all materials • Further review the choice of the corrugated metal panel and is the "industrial" image the right material for this building type ? • Move the roof screen back on the roof to connect to the higher garage element There was discussion about the entry vestibule,visitor restrooms, staff restrooms, and the overall feel and experience for the visitor. It was mentioned that the overall experience should be serene and respectful. Some discussion points were: • Walking in the entry puts the two visitor bathroom doors right in front of you and seeing traffic in and out of the bathrooms does not give an elegant feel to a building which should be more respectful. • There is very little solid wall in the vestibule to accommodate the usually required equipment in a vestibule which in this case puts all that equipment on the front wall straight in front of you when you enter. • It was asked if the front vestibule could be pulled out a few feet to increase the size of the vestibule, perhaps add a touch more solid wall to relocate equipment and if possible, pull the bathrooms out to allow a corridor behind them for a more discrete entry. • The size of the staff bathrooms was asked about and it was discussed that these had already been reduced greatly. Also asked was if a single visitor restroom would be sufficient, in the vestibule. • A member of the public also asked the architects to verify the equipment to be placed in the "copy Room" and the building code as some equipment of that nature requires the room to have doors and be vented. Discussion turned to the Sustainability Policy and Solar Readiness PBC Meeting 02.04.20 2 The architect stated that the project was being designed for future solar. Roof equipment layouts and space for future panels was being takin into consideration. Conduits were being provided for future equipment and it was felt that space was being allotted for future electrical equipment. It was suggested that we discuss what "Solar Ready' means for this and future projects as it can be taken very broadly and should perhaps have a more descriptive definition. There was concern that with 90% Documents fast approaching there was no LEED checklist completed. TBA presented that they had received the Towns updated Sustainable Building Policy and they and their engineers were currently reviewing the policy to see how the current building design responds to that policy and where it may fall short. Currently however TBA states that the building is an all-electric design designed to perform over 30% better than the ASHRAE standards and designed for Solar to be Solar ready. TBA doesn't believe that meeting the policy should be difficult. It was asked why the building design had not started with the sustainable policy in mind and everyone was reminded that when this project had started it was under the original policy which had an exclusion for buildings under 5,000 sf. It was also pointed out the in this building roughly 50%of the space is unconditioned and only minimally heated garage space.The current policy however has no building square footage minimums. The need for a solar analysis and energy modeling was discussed and it was suggested that the Sustainability Policy details be looked at by the project team in case there is recommendation needed to suggest any components of the policy that may not fully apply to a smaller building such as this. Meeting Adjourned PBC Meeting 02.04.20 3