High School Building Committee (HSBC) Meeting #73 Minutes

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Wayland Town Building

School Committee Conference Room

Attendees

HSBC members: Lea Anderson, Josh Bekenstein, Dianne Bladon, Brian Chase, Jim Howard, Fred Knight, David Lash, Mary Lentz, Joe Lewin, Cindy Lombardo, Eric Sheffels, Jennifer Steel

HMFH Team: Steve Millington

KVA Team: David Saindon

Ex Officio members: Allyson Mizoguchi

Call to order – HSBC Chairman, Lea Anderson, called the HSBC meeting to order at 7:37 p.m.

Update on Meetings with Town Departments

David Saindon reported that he and Steve Millington met with Chris Riley, Town Planner, Fire Chief, Robert Loomer, Police Chief, Robert Irving, and Health Department Manger, Steve Kalichman.

Town Planner will be interested in:

• Parking and zoning
• Pedestrian circulation
• Traffic impact
• Land Use Committee involvement

Fire Department

• Four-side access to facility would be great, but two-side access is acceptable
• More discussion on second site access

Police Department

• Parking during construction
• Neighborhoods
• Event parking
• Traffic
• Security issues

Health Department

• Design and technology of waste water treatment
• Test pits – DEP has jurisdiction
• Food prep

David will meet with new DPW manager regarding Park and Rec. and Roads after June 15^th.

Athletic Program – Steve Millington presented the athletic space program in a renovated field house with equal facilities for boys (lower level) and girls (upper level) locker rooms: coaches locker rooms, and storage. Total number of lockers proposed is 240 each for boys and girls. An elevator would be installed to the lower level. Elements of the program proposed to be built new are the combined fitness/weight room, training room, laundry room, and Athletic Director’s office totaling 3200 net square feet.

Athletic Director, Martha Jamieson, and Dean of Students, Scott Parseghian, answered questions. Comments from the HSBC were:

• We are starting with double the square footage allowed by the MSBA. How do we justify 3200 s.f. of new construction?
• Could we leave the weight room outside?
• Could we shrink the wrestling room (3400 s.f)? Ans. Batting cage takes up too much space.
• State guideline has similar figures except for circle of field house itself and storage (only 300 s.f.). We have to do Title 9; any reduction in space would result in a reduction of the program we have today.
• Storage is a problem. We already store football equipment off site. Total proposed is 3100 s.f. (the state allows only 300 s.f.).
• Could we build a mezzanine for storage in the field house? Ans. It may be a problem structurally; maximal use of available volume should be considered.
• Have we done a calculation on the cost of a totally new athletic construction vs. a renovated field house and a little new construction? Ans. partly. New facility would be about $5.7 million.
• Look at options for reducing space demands. Think twice about laundry, combine spaces, etc.
• Code issues will make it impossible to build on the cheap.
• We are expecting a fight on every square foot over state guidelines and new construction.

Action items regarding athletics:

1. Complete the financial analysis of new construction vs. renovation

2. Prioritize the program

3. Look at other options for fitting more in field house

Analysis of Options

Steve began by discussing parking relative to the two-building, single phase option discussed last week:

• Updated scheme shows 500 parking spaces. We currently have spaces for 488 cars plus 16 buses.
• Rules around public assembly require 1 space for every 3 people. If field house limit is about 1500, then we would need 500 spaces.
• It is necessary to have 1 space for each employee and 1 space for every 4 students of driving age (about 290 resulting in 71 spaces). WHS has a much higher number of students who drive to school.
• This scheme now requires demolition of the Math/English building to accommodate bus circulation.

There is a question about where the buses will be parked. Lea will ask Dr. Burton about current thinking on bus parking. It was noted that the neighborhood has concerns about where buses are parked.

Single building approach – Steve reported that the single building approach (“triangle”) has evolved into a better organized, less complicated scheme that misses all of the wetlands, but loses the courtyard effect. Discussion ensued:

• The two-building scheme is permittable on the existing parking lot as long as we don’t encroach further into the 200’ riverfront zone. A more rigorous “alternatives analysis” will be necessary under the Town Wetland Bylaw.
• The single building scheme does not meet the Futures Team recommendation as well as the two-building approach.
• Daylight is a big issue with this design and there is no courtyard.
• This approach will be less costly than the “triangle” because it is more efficient.
• This looks like a reasonable single-building approach.

Renovation approach – Steve looked again at the mostly renovation option. He is still concerned that there are compromises to the program that he has to analyze further. This version is at about 138,000 gross s.f. compared with 150,000 s.f. of non-athletic program in the ed spec. Perhaps there is significant net to gross efficiency because of the outdoor circulation. The new construction consists of an auditorium on the back of the Arts building and new classrooms added onto the Language building. There is no pushing out of walls in this approach as there was in the 2004 study. Here we are staying within the exterior walls and gutting the interior. New construction adds 16,000 net s.f (24,000 gross s.f.). Science labs would be in the Math/English building and the current Science building, too. The library would be cut in half with the rest used for language lab and other technology space. Teacher planning space is spread out. There is no way that this scheme approaches the Futures Team recommendation.

Comments were:

• This isn’t Stop Gap, but it sure is not the program.
• This design will grow as we figure out what is missing.

Renovation/New approach - Steve will look at renovation/new approach in more detail for next week. It involves demolishing three classroom buildings in the center of the campus (Language, Social Studies, Science) and building a new two-story classroom building in their place. The Commons, Arts, Math/English, and Admin would be renovated.

Cost analysis – David presented an options cost analysis based on comparing a two-building/single phase, single building/single phase and all renovation scheme. He will continue with the half renovation/half new analysis next week. All assume a renovated field house. David assumed construction cost per square foot for renovation at $240 and new construction at $292. Renovation is extensive. There is more work to be done on the estimates as we fine tune the schemes.

Discussion followed:

• Phasing and contingency costs are significant in renovation option.
• Gross to net might be more efficient in two-building option
• Single building will be more cost efficient.
• To get to 1.5 gross up it will take many iterations.
• There will be a premium for a two-building approach compared to a monolithic scheme. Are the benefits we see enough to warrant this approach – meeting Futures goals, daylight, outdoor use?
• This project must serve the town for 50 years.
• Single phase is critical.

David will continue to work on costs and include renovation/new approach.

Locker Report: The HSBC commented on the draft report “Wayland High School Visioning and Educational Specification.” The committee was very pleased with the report and agreed that the exercise engaged a large constituency, articulated a vision, and packaged and presented it in a clear way. The Locker Report represents the work that Frank did with the Futures Team, teachers, students and administrators.

Some concerns regarding the ed spec were expressed:

· Fine arts space is insufficient being lower than what we have now, except for auditorium.

· The HSBC will likely support 7,000 s.f over the state guidelines, but not 9,000 s.f. over in academic area. Third art room and large robotics room should be reduced to get closer to state guideline. The HSBC will likely not support any construction beyond renovations within the Field House for the athletics program.

· We are looking for efficiencies. School department should have a say in compromises.

· Is 1200 s.f. of WayCam student space or TV production?

· WayCam deserves to be at WHS. It serves community and school.

· We are 9,000 gross s.f. above guideline in academics and 3,200 net s.f above in athletics.

· We should forward the Locker report to the School Committee.

· We need feedback from MSBA.

Steve was asked to make reductions in several steps so that HSBC and WSC can understand how the educational program will be affected. The group agreed that finding out what the state will accept is critical to making progress.

Planning for Public Forum - Dianne Bladon provided an update on the presentation outline for the community forum on May 19. There has been some combining of topics and reducing of the number of speakers. Topics to be presented are:

• Welcome and introduction
• Futures Team results
• Concepts and approaches
• Cost estimation process and drivers
• Decisions and next steps
• Input from the public

Next steps (items from KVA’s look ahead):

May 19 Public Forum

May 21 MSBA site visit at 8 a.m.

May 21 HSBC Meeting

· Continued review and analysis of alternative options

May 28 HSBC Meeting

· Select an alternative

Motion: A motion was made by Mary Lentz and seconded by Jim Howard to approve the minutes to HSBC meeting #72 held on May 7, 2009.

Vote: The motion was approved – 12 in favor; 0 opposed.

Adjournment – The HSBC adjourned at 10:30 p.m.

Next meeting – Thursday, May 21 at 7:30 pm in the School Committee conference room

Observers: Kay D’Orlando, Barb Fletcher, Ken Isaacson, Martha Jamieson, Cecily Kiefer, Scott Parseghian