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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-11-15-SMPAC-min Lexington Public Schools Master Planning Committee November 15, 2022 from moo a.m. - 12:30 p.m. In-Person&Remote Participation via Zoom Members: Daniel Abramson (absent), Melissa Battite, Sandy Beebee (Liaison), Dave Coelho (absent),Michael Cronin, Rick DeAngelis (absent),Julie Hackett, Maureen Kavanaugh, Kathleen Lenihan,Alan Levine (Liaison),Jess Quattrocchi (absent), Mark Sandeen, Deepika Sawhney,Michael Schanbacher, Daniel Voss (absent) Other Staff Present: Avon Lewis, Lexington Education Association President The minutes were taken by Sara Jorge,Administrative Assistant for the Lexington Superintendent. The Committee reviewed the minutes from the Sete ber 29g 2022 seting. Mr. Levine pointed out that Ms. Quattrocchi's name was spelled wrong. Ms. Sawhney made a motion to approve the minutes from the September 29, 2022 Master Planning Advisory Committee Meeting as amended. Dr. Hackett took a roll call vote,passed 4-0. Dr. Hackett: I want to say up front that it personally does not matter to me where Central Office ends up.We are all happy to stay at 146 Maple Street, move to 173 Bedford Street, or be incorporated into the new high school.What is most important to me is that it is a community conversation. Everybody has input and this body will make a formal recommendation to decision-makers, including the School Committee and Select Board. Mr. Levine reviewed the document he created regarding the relocation of the Central Office. There are a few motivations for moving Central Office. One is recreational,when the high school is under construction,their fields are going to be taken offline, and if the Central Office Building at 146 Maple Street was demolished,this site could be used for fields. The other possibility is that this building is going to be expensive to renovate and that there could be something that's less expensive by building a new space associated with the new high school. In this document, I review the options for moving Central Office to 173 Bedford Street or the new high school but there are certain disadvantages. The main disadvantage is that when we have a debt exclusion for the high school,voters are going to ask whether this will lower cost projection and if it is reasonable. If we are trying to build a new additional space into the new high school it's not going to be the lowest cost.The other problem is that if you move the Central Office to the high school side,you need additional parking and space there is a premium. Making space for fields to be available while the high school is under reconstruction or replaced, is a timing issue.We are going to have to spend a ton of money to make a new place for the Central Office, and if it's not part of the debt exclusion,then it has to be another big expenditure prior to the expenditure on the high school. So,that is a problem and the wheels would have to start turning fairly soon, within the next year or two in order to make it feasible to actually get the feeling of the Town on this and you have to go through multiple steps. To vacate the current Central Office Building, you would have to have another place for Central Office.This building would have to be raised to do fields and that could take several years at least. So, it is not clear what is feasible and what is not feasible but the bottom line is we do not have the data that we need to make these decisions. We do not know what kind of resources are going to be necessary to keep the current Central Office Building in use.We do not know what kind of expenditures would be needed to move the Central Office to another place,whether it be 173 Bedford Street, new construction, or some other location. Dr. Hackett: what stood out to me most in your document is that timing really matters, in terms of moving the high school project forward.A few weeks ago,we had the architectural firm, Drummey Rosane Anderson, Inc., meet with Mike Cronin, Dave Coelho, and me to discuss a space utilization study for Central Office.What we wanted to know was how much space we're typically using, and what are the possibilities.We met with the architects first, and we identified all the different key positions in Central Office. The architects went through Central Office at 146 Maple Street and looked at the employees in the spaces to see what type of space is needed relative to the function or operation of a particular department. For example, a Human Resources Department needs private conference space that may not be necessary for some of the other job functions or departments. The Architects put the square footage of each space into an excel spreadsheet, and then came back to us for a second lengthy meeting to talk about the recommended space and to verify their data. The outcome of that exercise, and this is not a recommendation for a decision,the outcome of the exercise was to suggest that we could, in fact, if we wanted to fit into 173 Bedford Street,there are ways that we would have to go about doing that,but at least we understood that it's an option on the table.The Town has a 20-year capital plan. Mike Cronin has presented that at various points in time that the 20-year capital plan says that this building that we are in at 146 Maple Street, is an F building and in my opinion, an F building for Lexington standards, probably is a really nice building in some other communities. The Capital Plan states that it is approximately 16 million dollars in upgrades for the current Central Office Building,which is, another issue that prompted the discussion in the first place, do we put that much money into this building?The Town's Capital Plan also includes an analysis Of 173 Bedford Street, and the estimated cost for renovations is 6 million dollars which would include the elevator, sprinkler, and HVAC system. The Central Office Building that we're currently in is 46,600 square feet and as indicated by the sace utilization study, Central Office only needs 17,284 square feet to operate. How this would work is we have direct service providers housed in this building just because we can. Specialist positions that provide direct services to students actually spend more of their time in schools, so there is nothing to say that they couldn't have their location or their home base be in one of the schools,where we now have a pretty balanced operating capacity and a little bit more space than we used to,thanks to the redistricting efforts that we engaged in a few years ago. The size of 173 Bedford is 16,397 square feet, and we would need 17,284 square feet or so, according to the space utilization study for Central Office to operate. I am sure with some tweaking we could probably hit that target. So, notwithstanding the issues that Alan identified in his overview, it is at least possible to move Central Office to that location. Mr. Sandeen: at the Select Board Meeting last night,the first presentation of the proposed Capital Plan was presented. There was significant pushback from the Select Board on the topic Of 173 Bedford Street is expected to be considered swing space going forward. My concern when I look at the Capital Plan that was brought forward to us at the Select Board last night is that the same Capital Plan that shows $6 million for renovating 173 Bedford Street also presented with a plan to renovate just the children's room at the Library for $3 million and renovating the Stone Building,which is 5,000 square foot building for $10 million. So, I am having trouble putting those numbers in the same context, and seeing how it might be possible that it costs $3 million dollars to renovate a children's room just as a single room in the Library for $3 million but the entire 173 Bedford Street building will only cost $6 million, and the cost they are projecting includes elevators and things along lines,which we know are incredibly expensive. I also agree with Mr. Levine's issues with looking at costs,we are going to have a number of people looking at this issue from a perspective of cost. If we move the Central Office Administration into the high school, it will increase the cost overall, so I would suggest that people will want to look at the total cost, not just the incremental cost for the high school, and what is the best use of taxpayer money overall. Ms. Lenihan: could Mr. Sandeen give us a little more information about what was discussed at the Select Board Meeting? I am specifically wondering if the idea of using the 173 Bedford Street parcel as zoning for housing with the new rule regarding MBTA communities was discussed. Mr. Sandeen: it was not discussed at last night's Select Board Meeting as a potential use for the space but it has been in the past. Mr. Schanbacher: we are still at the very beginning stages of discussing where in Town we are going to be rezoning for the multi-family MBTA housing.We have certainly discussed 173 Bedford Street towards 128 as possibilities,but again, everything is very much in the early stages of discussion. I do think that site would be a strong candidate but we don't have to build any of this,we just have to allow it by right, and of course,we would like some of it,but that is for future developments to figure out. Mr. Sandeen: my understanding of the MBTA zoning is that you cannot zone just one single site Mr. Schanbacher: that is correct,you have to have more than one property in any given area. Mr. Levine: buying 173 Bedford Street is what made the reconstruction of the Fire Station possible and the same with the Police Station.Without this property,we would not have been able to do those projects.Those projects are not the only projects we are going to ever have to do.We need swing space that is not the size of a school as other buildings will need to be renovated like the Town Offices or the Community Center someday. I am in favor of the Town keeping a swing space whether it be at 173 Bedford Street or some other place, and right now we do not have another place. I am in favor of the MBTA housing but not at 173 Bedford Street unless we get another property for swing space. Moving Central Office before the high schools approved debt exclusion will need to be justified enormously in order to go move forward with it. Mr.Schanbacher: we can rezone 173 Bedford Street as housing but what that means is existing buildings can remain, and in order for housing to be built there,the Town would have to sell the property. Nothing changes from the Town's perspective unless somewhere down the road we found another building that was better for swing space,we could then sell 173 Bedford Street and then a developer could come in and build housing, in the event we went with that area. Again,we do not have to build anything by rezoning it,we are just providing the opportunity to do it in the future. Mr. Sandeen: the Capital Planning process is also now starting to contemplate reconstruction of the Town Office Building,which is also one of the buildings that are rated F.Another item that this group might find interesting is that for the first time our Capital Plan showed up with the high school project on it with a $400 million dollar number. Dr. Hackett: that is interesting, and a good development, and probably not enough but I am hoping we are wrong. Mr. Cronin is using the calculation of$925 per square foot for a new build right now and if we only need 17,000 square feet at Central Office, it would come out to be about 16 million dollars,which is the estimated cost of repairs or capital projects to the current Central Office building. So, if new build costs somewhere between 16-20 million versus 16 million to fix it,then does that influence the decision making for one direction or another? It is a similar argument we are making for the high school-we need to put go million into the HVAC and boilers so do you want to put $90 million into an old building or would it be better served to use that money toward that $400 million in a new building. Mr. Levine: I am skeptical that we need to put $15 million into this building in the next 5 years. We would need to discuss with Mr. Cronin what absolutely needs to be done in the next 7-8 years, and what could be done 15 years from now. Dr. Hackett: today, I would like us to determine what we need for the next steps to make a recommendation. One of the options that was not identified in Alan's write up but we are talking about it at this very moment is to do nothing and keep Central Office where it is.The second option is that Central Office could move to 173 Bedford Street or the third option is to incorporate it into the new high school project. I do agree that having a swing space is convenient. Ms. Sawhney: right now,you have 82 employees at Central Office, if you do not take them all to the new swing space, does 173 Bedford have the parking to withhold the Central Office staff of around 70 plus the 5-10 spaces for visitors? Dr. Hackett: we have about 40-50 parking spaces currently at Central Office but we are able to use next door at Harrington, so parking at 173 Bedford Street would have to be looked at.We also need to look at Mr. Sandeen's point of how can one room cost $3 million then a whole building cost $6 million. Mr. Schanbacher: as I serve two roles of being an architect and being on the Planning Board, from a construction standpoint,there is a fixed cost that doesn't entirely scale with a particular project. I do agree with you that $16 million for a whole building and $3 million for a single room is a little bit out of scale,but everything is a bit off right now in the construction market. Again,there are just mobilization costs, so there is kind of like a sort of floor of costs for certain projects, so that is probably generating some of that difference. Dr. Hackett discussed the advantages of having the Central Office built into the new high school. From my perspective, one would be safety. We would be at one of the largest campuses in the school system with 2,500 students and having Central Office connected to it can be useful in terms of evacuations or if we need to be on site.We also have a Central Registration Office here at Central Office, and it is a one-stop shop for newcomers to our Community. Right now,it is located in the back of the building,which is not necessarily conducive to a warm and inviting environment,where people who may speak a language other than English come, so I can see the advantage of having Central Registration on the largest campus in Town at an easily accessible location.We also have our Community Education Program housed at Central Office.They do not require a lot of space but they do many creative things. If we were to move our operations into the high school,they could connect with some of the public shared spaces that we have in the new building like the auditoriums for when they have guest speakers,which might make for a better use for that program.We also have opportunities for different operations to exist within the new high school itself and not necessarily in the Central Office wing we were to put it at the high school.We could take the Print Shop and incorporate it into the high school and could find creative ways that students could assist to learn new skills. I am thinking that parking might be a little easier on the new site because some of what happens here is that we utilize the space but not all the time.We do utilize the space at Central Office to accommodate working groups and teachers and professional learning, and with most of the population already being at the high school, parking might not be an issue.We could also maximize the use of conference rooms and planning rooms at the high school and not necessarily have to work off just the 17,000 square feet at Central Office. Ms. Sawhney: when MSBA funds schools in much denser locations, do they have a problem with funding a multi-tier garage? Mr. Schanbacher: I do not know if that is on their approved list but my sense is that it is not but I do not know that for certain at all. Mr. Levine: a parking garage would increase the cost substantially.The problem now is there is not enough parking at the high school, and if you're adding the Central Office with a need for parking,where is it coming from?You either need more land for parking or you need a parking garage. Mr. Sandeen: based on Google maps,there are about 8o-90 parking spaces at 173 Bedford Street. Dr. Hackett welcomed Mr. Cronin to the meeting. Mr. Cronin: we should all realize that there is going to be a significant investment in the current Central Office Building if Central Office was going to remain at 146 Maple Street. Mr. Levine: what does Central Office actually need, and how soon do these items really need to be done? Mr. Cronin: the current Central Office Building needs a roof,windows, and HVAC.The roof is an actively leaking roof and needs a full replacement.We are currently putting bandaids on the roof until we know exactly what is happening with 146 Maple Street. The windows are single pane, double hung and they rattle and they leak,they need a full replacement. The HVAC system we have is being held together and then supplemented with mini splits.They are becoming our short-term solution because the heating system just doesn't cut it. Dr. Hackett: Mr. Cronin,what are your thoughts about the timeline, Mr. Levine raised an interesting and important question,we have to go for a debt exclusion on the new high school, and the worry I am hearing is what happens if we are also introducing something like this at a time when we are trying to move forward with the high school project. Do we want to wait on this and if so,how long will the wait be? Mr. Cronin: the Recreation Department has made it pretty clear that when we do the high school project,we are going to be short four fields. Back in 2007,when Harrington was redone,the plan was to take Central Office at 146 Maple Street down and build 3 fields on that site, so that is 3 out of the 4 fields we will be missing during the high school project. If Central Office is to move to 173 Bedford Street,that building needs some work to support the Central Office Staff.The HVAC does not work on the upper floor, it does not have an elevator or fire protection in that building, so it needs some investments. Ms. Sawhney: how much will it cost to remove Central Office and develop fields at 146 Maple Street? Mr. Cronin: to bring in a contractor to knock down the Central Office building and do all the abatement that is necessary and take all the material away, it is estimated at 1.5 million. This will leave the site for Ms. Battite to work with her contractor to make fields. Ms. Battite: Once the demo is completed,the field contractor would come in to develop 2 fields with lights for 6.1 million dollars. Dr. Hackett: with the demolition of the Central Office and the development of fields, it will roughly cost 5-8 million dollars together. Ms. Lenihan: I share Mr. Levine's concerns about spending a lot of money before we even get to the high school project.This is going to be a very big lift in convincing voters to approve what will almost certainly be the most expensive school building ever built in the State, only because it will be the most recent and one of the biggest. I am not sure how the timeline works with Central Office moved out of 146 Maple Street and somewhere else before the high school is built especially if we are going to rely on 173 Bedford Street.This just seems really overly optimistic from where I stand. Mr. Sandeen: I think that Ms. Lenihan has some points there. I want to see the total cost of the decision, I am interested in what the overall picture and price looks like. Mr. Levine is absolutely correct that moving Central Office into the high school is going to increase the cost of the high school but moving to 113 Bedford Street or remaining at 146 Maple Street will also increase costs in other ways, so we should look at all options in total. Mr. Schanbacher: with the option of moving the Central Office to 173 Bedford Street,when will the Police Station be moving out of the swing space? Mr. Cronin: we are anticipating the Police Station being completed by March or April of 2024 with the police moving out of 173 Bedford Street by June 1, 2024. If everything lined up and we had the approval set for the renovation of 173 Bedford Street,we would start July 1, 2024,with the plan to take down the current Central Office building by July 1, 2025,which would take about a month or two. Ms. Battite would then work with her contractors to develop fields. If everything goes as planned, I can see the construction for the high school happening in July of 2026, so this does give the Recreation Department time to put fields in place and get them ready for playability for the following year. Mr. Schanbacher: that timeline was really helpful and critical for us to know so that we are able to make an informed decision.Another idea is to move Central Office to the high school and what that could potentially do is make the current Central Office swing space so that if we were to rezone 173 Bedford Steet for multi-family housing,we could as a Town sell that property to a developer and get some cost savings that way.Now that doesn't solve the field problem but it is another option. I look at the current Central Office Building and 173 Bedford Street and I see more value in the current Central Office Building, so I prefer to not knock it down. Mr. Cronin: if it is decided to put Central Office at the high school,we could always find commercial space available for rent to move the Central Office while the high school is being built. Mr. Sandeen: at the Select Board meeting last night,we heard that there are a lot of office space vacancies in Lexington right now. Ms. Battite: if you haven't had a chance to look at the athletic feasibility study that was just completed,based on the existing shortage of field,which is now going over two decades.The Recreation Committee has put some of the recommendations listed in the feasibility study into our 5-year capital, so we have moved some projects up.We already have a deficit of just under 2,00o hours a year, so losing additional fields at Center Recreation will just make that deficit even more significant.We are trying to figure out how we can gain some fields for when we lose the green space at Center Recreation temporarily or permanently.The other important note to know is that we have three fields at Lincoln Park that will be getting replacements 3 years in a row during the years, 2025, 2026, and 2027.When we are looking at the whole picture,we are looking at all our fields and all the uses of them, and then you roll in the loss of fields and then you roll in the timeline of when the shovel goes into the ground at the high school,we will not be able to maintain level services.We will then be renting out of Town fields which is another expense. Central Office is one of the sites where the Recreation Committee thought we would get the most bang for our buck to complement the loss of fields at Center or while Lincoln is possibly done at the same time. Dr. Hackett: how is the 2,000-hour deficit calculated? Ms. Battite: that comes from the requests that we get every year that we are not able to provide hours for. Some of the requests are for hours during high demand versus some fields that might be available but do not have lights or the location does not have parking to accommodate.We are just trying to be proactive so that we can minimize the loss of services and access to fields for the community. Ms. Beebee: there have been a lot of great points brought up so far. I appreciate that we are trying to fulfill two objectives here: demolishing Central Office so that we do not need to put so much work into it and also to acquire these much-needed fields at a time when we're going to really need them for the Recreation Department. I am not l00% sold that 173 Bedford Street is exactly the right spot for Central Office, I prefer the high school option more. I like the idea of using the old Harrington space as fields. One of my concerns is that it sounds like we would be squeezing Central Office into 173 Bedford Street, and there would not be room to grow if need be. Ms. Sawhney: we need to see what is the cost of operations at 146 Maple Street and the cost of renting because rent will add up quickly. If we could have a spreadsheet with draft numbers saying these are the costs associated with this option,that way it is easy to see which option makes the most sense. Can we also link the athletic feasibility study and have a document that has all the facts on the website? Mr. Cronin: we need to fix the roof from a health and safety standpoint, no matter what. Mr. Levine: I am certainly not on board with moving Central Office to the new high school. Facilities and the Recreation Department need to make a plan to make sure that the work that needs to be done on the Lincoln fields begins before the high school construction starts because we do not want those fields to be taken out of service when the high school construction starts. Ms. Battite: the feasibility study did take into consideration the high school timeline and the priority of fields for the next five years. The fields that are possibly coming offline are not fields at Lincoln or possibly Harrington,we are losing ball fields and there is not another football field in Town.There are a lot of other things than just creating additional open space that we need to work on and it is not just recreation fields,these are community fields and our biggest user group is the athletic department, the PE, Health, and Wellness classes,they are on those fields every day.After-school sports for the middle and high school athletics are now on the fields until 6 p.m., so it is not just recreation,they are community parks. Ms. Lewis: having fields at the current Central Office location is not interchangeable with the fields we currently have and providing the services that we use the fields for right now. It is not trading a square foot for a square foot.When students have practice,they usually walk to practice, so how do we get them to the Harrington fields? From a health and safety standpoint, old building that is leaking is a health and safety problem.When mold grows,it becomes an unsafe environment and I hope we can provide a healthful workplace for the staff who work at Central Office. Mr. Sandeen: 173 Bedford Street is a very strategic piece of property in the long-term plan for the Town and I think we should be thinking about the long-term potential for the Town. My inclination is that moving Central Office to the high school is going to be the total lower cost overall. I am intrigued by Mr. Schanbacher's idea of retrofitting the Central Office Building but it seems to me that it is difficult to retrofit a classroom space to be an office space. Mr. Cronin: 146 Maple Street building is an old school with masonry walls being divided into classroom spaces, so we would have to really go in there and take down all concrete walls that are dividing all the spaces,then subdivide it in a way that is a little more friendly for the users that will be in that space.There is a lot of wasted space in the Central Office building. Ms. Lenihan: I want to talk about the timeline in terms of funding. Mr. Cronin talked about how the police station will be moving out of 173 Bedford Street on June 1, 2024.Then,theoretically, we were going to use that space for Central Office. How is that being paid for? If this is part of the debt exclusion for the high school,would that mean the debt exclusion has already happened? If not,would we just start doing it ahead of time in anticipation of the debt exclusion, that could get a little tricky and we don't want to convey a message to voters that we are just assuming what they will vote for.Also, if we were doing a commercial rental,would that rental fee be part of the Lexington Public Schools'operating budget? Dr. Hackett: that should not be part of the Lexington Public Schools' operating budget,but also, you, as a School Committee,have to give up this building and take a vote to return it to the Town. Mr. Cronin: I think there is a bigger Committee that needs to get together to figure out what the process would be, and whether or not this project is incorporated in the high school or does the high school stand alone. Dr. Kavanaugh: it is a gift to be next to a school and the opportunity to be part of the school community which is the fuel of our work.The other piece is the importance of the professional learning and collaboration space, I think back to the years when we had overcrowding at the elementary, middle, and high school levels,this became the only space where we could have a meeting with 20-30 people or more.These kinds of collaborative work events or professional learning opportunities are so essential to the work that we do, so just make sure that Central Office has sufficient space to support that. Dr. Hackett will send an overview memo to the Master Planning Advisory Committee. Mike Cronin, Maureen Kavanaugh, and Dr. Hackett will meet to identify total costs and then map out the options in a clear way.We will also try to map out a more concrete timeline for decision-making so that we know when we need to make a decision by and what steps are that we will take to get there. Ms. Sawhney made a motion to adjourn. Ms. Lenihan seconded.The meeting adjourned at 12:20 p.m.