School Building Committee

Office of the City Manager City Hall ● 375 Merrimack Street ● Lowell, MA 01852 P: 978.674.4000 ● F: 978.970.4007 www.LowellMA.gov Eileen Donoghue City Manager School Building Committee Meeting Meeting Minutes Date: October 3, 2019 Time: 5:30 PM Location: City Council Chambers SBC Members Present: E. Donoghue, W. Samaras, R. Elliott, C. Martin, C. Baldwin, M. Ballotta, M. Busteed, C. Clancy, J. Cook, J. Boyd, B. Opara, D. Tradd, R. Underwood, M. Vaughn, R. Snow Suffolk Members Present: C. Walentin, Perkins Eastman Members Present: J. Drown Skanska Members Present: M. Williams, J. Dowd City Staff Present: K. Keefe Mullin, A. Magee City Manager E. Donoghue called meeting to order at 5:31. Roll call showed 13 present. R. Elliott and J. Boyd joined after roll call to make a total of 15 present. E. Donoghue introduced meeting, noted good idea to bring School Building Committee up to speed on what has been happening over last couple months and what next steps look like now that construction manager is on board. Motion to accept minutes of August meeting by M. Vaughn, 2nd by W. Samaras. All in favor. Update from C. Walentin (Suffolk) on the project. He noted there have been a number of meetings on phasing with Skanska and Perkins Eastman. He also noted they had good success with Perkins Eastman in moving the 1980’s building “cut line” to make work easier with less disruptions to students. He noted the aim was to make the least amount of disruption to students and faculty/staff. E. Donoghue asked C. Walentin to go over phases in a little more detail. C. Walentin noted Phase 1 is the new gymnasium on the current 75 Arcand site. Phase 2 involves tearing down existing gym, build freshman academy, remove back-end of current 1980s building. Phase 3 and 4 are renovations of the remaining existing buildings. Nothing has drastically changed with regards to phases. C. Walentin transitioned into a look at the schedule. He noted they have been doing a lot of study on this schedule. Hoping to implement “summer turnovers” to reduce any impact on students during the school year. Noted design and budget meetings have been well underway. Looking to keep all demolition during summer if possible. C. Walentin also spoke to communications plan which involves students, staff and members of the public. Looking to do monthly videos of whats going on – job site visits etc. Also will do monthly updates to the model with P.E. Will discuss what activities have taken place during the month, and what activities are upcoming in the next months. Makes for a smoother process as found in other communities. Will continue to develop this plan over the next few months. E. Donoghue noted the desire to squeeze schedule down and focus on summer work to lessen impact on the community. Noted the importance of the communications plan, including a live cam and website updates during the project. E. Donoghue noted we are looking to remain as transparent as possible. Also noted an effort to coordinate with other projects going on around the City during LHS construction period. Noted Suffolk has accomplished this in Somerville on their high school building project there. C. Martin asked if students could be involved in the communications plan; C. Walentin noted it was a wonderful idea and Suffolk would love for students to be involved in any way possible. J. Drown moved on to site investigations and noted what work has been happening over last few months. Noted engineers and Suffolk staff have been studying and documenting the building and existing structure. He also noted the foundation explorations at 75 Arcand, which is slated for demolition. J. Drown noted additional explorations on the building exterior, including taking out a window to determine how it was affixed to the building and to expose the cavity between interior and exterior, because the current plan is to replace all windows in all buildings. This work will continue throughout the Fall 2019. J. Drown also noted discoveries made through exploring historical maps. Noted there were homes on the site at one point which may lead to buried foundations. J. Drown noted there was more work to come on this. J. Drown transitioned to meeting summaries over the last few months. On 8/15/19, had a contractors meeting – OAC (Owner, Architect, Contractor). On 8/21/19 met with ENEL and discussed electric cables buried in canal. Also discussed possibility of canal receiving storm water runoff from LHS. OAC Meetings 8/29/19, 9/15/19, 9/26/19. On 9/26/19, had meeting with National Grid “green energy charrette” to work on strategies to reduce energy usage and search for rebates to the City. National Grid was presented with an energy proposal, will study and return with their proposal. The City will make a decision following that. Today, 10/3/19, had a working group meeting, focused on sustainability. Focus was on sustainable strategies, looked at HVAC, LEED targets, well into LEED Silver and working on ways to get into LEED Gold.  Office of the City Manager City Hall ● 375 Merrimack Street ● Lowell, MA 01852 P: 978.674.4000 ● F: 978.970.4007 www.LowellMA.gov Eileen Donoghue City Manager Regarding the green energy charrette, J. Drown noted the city may be able to receive rebates depending on the systems that go into the construction. He expects we will get a proposal in next couple months. Over the next month or so, will be meeting with a number of different stakeholders involved with this project, including teachers, students, city staff, project staff, and consultants. Meetings will take place throughout the next month or so. E. Donoghue discussed the importance of the teacher meeting and how their input is important to the project. Also noted that the consultants have taken up temporary office space at 75 Arcand Dr. which negates need for trailers. She further noted there has been interest from local landlords to rent office space out to the consultants which may be a win-win and reduce trailer use in the City. E. Donoghue also questioned the submission timeline to MSBA. J. Drown noted submission will be due January 31. E. Donoghue moved on to an Article 97 update. She stated it requires the legislature’s involvement in order to move the bridge slightly and the issue of air rights air rights. Noted the legislation is still in the committee and staff are working on getting it out of the committee and into a full vote of the house and senate. This process continues to unfold. J. Drown noted next steps involved a number of meetings over the next few months. M. Williams noted the project is getting close to 100% design development – which is about halfway through the overall design. M. Williams noted looking at scheduling, phasing and procurement and how this all fits into how they price the project. M. Williams stated drawings will be completed in December and two separate estimators will develop pricing models and then will perform reconciliation on the two pricing models. She noted they will repeat this process three times to hone in on the project’s final budget. E. Donoghue noted the amount of detail at the OAC meetings is very thorough and the importance of careful planning throughout this process. She thanked consultants for their dedication, communication and thoroughness. J. Boyd thanked City Manager Donoghue for her leadership, stated he believes this will be a great project. Meeting adjourned 6:06.