Aldermen, Board of

A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Thursday, November 13, 2014, at 6:02 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. President David W. Deane presided; Deputy City Clerk Patricia Piecuch recorded. Prayer was offered by Deputy City Clerk Patricia Piecuch; Alderman June M. Caron led in the Pledge to the Flag. The roll call was taken with 9 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Dowd, Alderman Chasse, Alderman Moriarty, Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja, Alderwoman Brown, Alderman Wilshire were recorded absent. Her Honor Mayor Donnalee Lozeau was also in attendance. COMMUNICATIONS MOTION BY ALDERMAN McCARTHY THAT ALL COMMUNICATIONS BE READ BY TITLE ONLY MOTION CARRIED From: David W. Deane, President, Board of Aldermen Re: Special Board of Aldermen Meeting MOTION BY ALDERMAN McCARTHY TO ACCEPT AND PLACE ON FILE MOTION CARRIED BROAD STREET PARKWAY RIVER BRIDGE RAILINGS DESIGN President Deane We’re also joined by Commissioner Pappas and Commissioner Moriarty from the Board of Public Works. Mr. Vancor, would you like to come? Mr. Dookran, if you would like to come up and join us, grabs a chair. The Mayor had talked about the railing design. When I had discussed the urgency of this, it had to do with the fact that of the timeline of ordering the railings. The length of the railings would change depending on what sort of design for the fire laces were decided upon. There’s a long lead time on getting them. The contractor wanted to be able to get everything in motion to try to meet their deadline and schedule. Mayor Lozeau I wanted to just remind everybody that we had talked about providing an opportunity for input from the Board of Aldermen about the choices that we were going to make on the bridge rail. This is the bridge that goes over the river. It will come in to the right of Cotton Mill. It will land to the left of the Millyard Technology Park and just before the chimney, just to give you a frame of reference for the area that we’re talking about where this will go over the river. Mr. Vancor is going to walk you through some of the options available to us. You will see one that starts pretty much at the bottom line base, kind of highway bridge look. Then one that as it was getting really, really expensive we thought wouldn’t be a good option. Likely we’ll concentrate on the two in the middle and what we can do to change this bridge a little bit. The sense that I got from both the Board of Public Works and the Board of Aldermen as we’ve been looking at this project is I think people do understand that there is an opportunity to have this bridge look different than a highway bridge at this important part of the city. We hope that we provide you with some of those options tonight, and we look forward to your feedback on it. With that, Mr. President, if I could turn it over to Mr. Vancor? President Deane We had briefly discussed earlier the timeline on the feedback so it’s something that doesn’t stretch into months. The reason for the meeting was to be able to settle upon something. If anyone had any feedback, do you want to just provide your feedback to the Mayor? What do you want to make it? Next Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 2 Thursday? Just make it a week. Is everybody okay with that? We’ll make it a seven-day period so by 5 o’clock next Thursday if you have anything that you would like to provide, just send it along to the Mayor to her e-mail. Is a week too long? Mayor Lozeau The Board of Public Works hopefully is going to make a determination next week. President Deane When’s their meeting? Mayor Lozeau Thursday at 5:30 p.m. President Deane Why don’t we do it by Wednesday. Next Wednesday by 5:00 p.m. That way any feedback that is given from the Board of Aldermen can be brought over to the Board of Public Works meeting. Mayor Lozeau Thank you, and I’m certainly interested in any that you want to give tonight and any discussion that we have. President Deane Okay. Mr. Vancor, it’s all yours. John Vancor I’d like to start by giving a little background on how we gotten to where we are, particularly contractually. You may recall the first bridge that went out to bid for contractors was the Baldwin Street Bridge. When we went out to bid on that, we had a base bid which is basically a New Hampshire Department of Transportation Standard Rail. Then we had a bid alternate. That was the enhanced rail. If you’ve driven over the bridge since it opened, it’s that rail. We were able to put that out as a bid alternate. We have prices that were derived and competitive bidding. We were able to, once the decision was made to use that alternative, proceed and have it done. Then we went out to bid for the river bridge and for the Fairmount Street Bridge. They went out together. Federal Highway decided with the complexity of that contract, although we very much wanted to go out with a bid alternative that would give us pricing for an upgraded rail, Federal Highway didn’t want us and wouldn’t allow us to use that bid alternate mechanism. Where we are is what’s shown here, the base bid. That’s that NH DOT standard type rail. That’s what the contractor is under contract to do now. Any enhancements we’ll be dealing with those in a change order type situation. This base bid situation, you can see along the edge, this is the rail looking from the side. Maybe if you were out on the river looking right at the bridge, you don’t see the substructure, you don’t see the bridge underneath. This is simply from the surface of the bridge deck up. Here’s one end of the bridge. We have an accent feature. On the other end of the bridge you see a similar feature. On the blow up you can see that feature. The base bid, that’s a concrete surface. These square areas and this area inside under the base contract there’s a provision to use a form liner to give the concrete some texture. It’s been thought that one treatment could be a brick type texture that’s formed into the concrete. Then as you look at the rail, itself, this rail and here’s a picture of it, this is the standard DOT rail. You can see this rail along the turnpike just north of Exit 5 on the northbound side with the steel fabrication business on the right. You can see that. Some of the ramps have that. It’s a flat appearing steel rail. I think there’s a lot of people that would agree it’s maybe not as attractive as other rails. Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 3 President Deane It looks like a cattle fence. John Vancor I think that’s a fair description. This view is a bird’s eye view looking down on the bridge with the river. Here’s the Millyard. Here’s the north side. Along the river this is to point out that you may recall that the design for the river bridge includes an outlook on either side, basically about mid-span on the bridge itself and another location over the river where people walking on the sidewalk can stop. They can step out into that extra space and enjoy the view. That’s the base bid. That’s what the contract is under contract now to do. As we’ve been working along, we’ve talked about quite a few options; we’ve talked about quite a few things. One of the ideas that have come up quite a few times in discussions is this is a bridge if you’re coming from the north and you’re coming into the Millyard, you’re crossing the river into the Millayrd, brick could be a good treatment on this bridge to welcome you into the Millyard and make a transition into where you see so many bricks. We were looking at possibly using a combination. Here again is that approached detail now completely faced with brick. We really weren’t talking about the form liner treatment, the shape and concrete to look like brick. We were talking about facing it with real brick and then extended rail made of concrete but again faced with brick with a heavy steal or aluminum rail above. This was a concept that I think a lot of us thought was pretty attractive. Unfortunately as we started pricing this option out, we started to realize that it would be well more than $800,000 and could approach $1 million. We thought we’re going to really have to take a step back from that. One of the things we looked at this, I should have mentioned, is at that outlook that I talked about, we thought right there at the outlook would be good place to have another accent point. Again we were looking brick facing on that. It would really enhance that outlook and make it a good place, a focus place on the bridge, a place where people could stop. As we realized that the anticipated price was getting very, very high we realized we really needed to take a step back and look at perhaps another option. Part of this new option, we really liked the treatment at the outlook. We liked the brick facing on it. We also looked at stepping back from that brick rail and using that aluminum rail that you see on Baldwin Street. That same rail will be on Fairmont Street. Using a combination of real brick treatment and that aluminum, we looked at what else we could do. One other feature that’s on the approach I just described, if I zoom in again, here’s are these intermediate pilasters, for lack of another term, beneath each one of the lights. Each one of the options had that. We also thought to enhance the appearance and carry that brick idea through and break up the metal rail for the river bridge that maybe we could incorporate intermediate pilasters along the links to serve to break up the long run of rail. This is an option that we went to the contractor and requested pricing for. As I said it would be a change order to implement something like this. We were sadly surprised to get the pricing from the contractor. This option as you see it here came back from the contractor. He proposes to do it for $547,000. We were hoping to see a number significantly lower than that. That got us to the point where we’re thinking about the cost of individual elements. We very much like the idea of enhancing the treatment at those outlooks and making those a focal point. In looking at the pricing, we realize those approaches are probably costing about $92,000 in total, maybe even as much as $100,000 when we start to look at the nitty-gritty of the proposal from the contractor. We also looked at these interim pilasters that break up that rail and tried to see just what that was adding to the cost and realized in total adding those and using the brick facing on them was about $86,000 for that feature. If we made some modifications and we took out some of these elements that we think add to what makes this concept special, if we didn’t have this approach, as much as it pains me to say it, if we didn’t have the approach and we didn’t have the interim pilasters then this option looking at the pricing we’ve received, it would probably be about $360,000. In terms of if we took a real minimalistic approach to the point of even just going back to that first base bid and simply replacing the DOT standard rail, cow fence appearance, replaced it with this aluminum rail, that alone, losing the other enhancements would probably cost about $250,000. That’s a summary of some of the thinking we’ve been doing and some of the pricing and implications of the pricing that we’ve been receiving. Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 4 Alderman Sheehan How would this upgraded railing compare to what we already have on the Main Street Bridge? Is it similar in appearance? John Vancor It is similar in appearance. This rail is similar. The color would be the same as the Baldwin Street Bridge. The rail, itself, is fairly similar. Alderman Sheehan Would it be possible to make the color the same as the Main Street one? The Baldwin Street one kind of jumps out. If those are two bridges going over the big river, wouldn’t it make sense to match those and not the Broad Street Parkway necessarily? John Vancor I don’t think changing the color will change the pricing in any way. I’m sure there’s plenty of options for that. Alderman Schoneman I can’t tell on the scale up there. What’s the distance between the light post and then what’s the distance between the light post and those extra pilasters. John Vancor The light posts here are 61 feet apart, that’s about midway so that would be 30 feet. Commissioner Pappas The intermittent pilasters were $86,000. The minimal base is $250,000. I assume the 86 would be added to the 250. John Vancor Yes. Alderman Siegel I think the main arguments that I was receptive to with the Fairmount and Baldwin Street bridges were they were right in the middle of a neighborhood. I thought it was reasonable to expect us to upgrade the way the wall looked because those people had a right to have their property values not devalue. I’m not sure what property values are affected by this span. Obviously there’s an aesthetic component to the bridge just like anything, but it’s a lot of money that you’re talking about to upgrade this, and it’s fairly substantial. Am I wrong on that? Is there an impact that I’m not seeing? I’m talking about a neighborhood property value impact. Mayor Lozeau I think it would probably be hard for Mr. Vancor to weigh in on that kind of conversation. The neighborhood that’s closest to that is the Millyard and what we want to see happen there. The Picker Building we think is going nicely into an artist building and then on the other side, the closest neighborhood is the 100 or so units in Cotton Mill and all the Charles Street neighborhood. When you come from Baldwin over Fairmount and down. That’s a piece of it. It’s not the same conversation as Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 5 Baldwin Street and Fairmount Street which is kind in the center of a residential area. One of the things we’ve been thinking about is if you look at a lot of cities, there’s a lot to be said about the features that we’re trying to call attention to. Because we’ve invested so much on trying to get a river walk and then we have the cotton transfer bridge that the federal government covered the couple of millions of dollars to restore it back to its historic nature. After that the Main Street Bridge. What we were thinking is how do we strike the right balance between putting a highway bridge over the Nashua River which we’re trying to draw more attention to and more people to than the brick one. If money wasn’t an option, I think the full brick bridge is the right option. But money is important. Somewhere in between adding for instance the base bid is really just fake brick on concrete. It has a very different look as I’m sure you are aware. The two options in the middle of the price range are real brick. Whether we have more or less of that certainly makes a difference in the cost and in the weight and some of those things. Also the other neighborhood that you don’t’ necessarily think of as a neighborhood is Clock Tower which runs that whole length of the other side. Although it’s not a traditional neighborhood like you find on Charles Street or Fairmount, it does have a fair amount of neighborhood in that general area that will see that bridge. Alderman Siegel From what Mr. Vancor was saying it sounded like if we only change the railing, itself, and we’re talking about leaving the fake brick treatment in place, was I correct in saying $250,000 just for that change alone? John Vancor That’s correct. Alderman Siegel What’s the change between that and having the real brick without the intervening plasters, just changing the facing on the structures? Was that $320,000? John Vancor I think I gave a $360,000 number. That actually included the interim pilasters as well as the approach. If you didn’t’ do the pilasters it would probably be around $300,000. Alderman Siegel I’m just looking at a situation where the constituents don’t want to take those overlooks and use them to throw us off the bridge for spending all this money. Alderman McCarthy Sort of along the same lines, the alternatives that you’ve shown us all assume the first thing we want to do is change the rail. Just thinking about it while you’re doing the presentation, the difference between this bridge and the two in the neighborhoods are those are going to be seen a lot of the time close up. This one is going to be seen from cars going over it at speeds and from a distance. I’m wondering if it makes more sense to look at the brick and the additional pilasters to break up the appearance of the bridge from a distance and perhaps do that with the original cattle fence railing. I think breaking up the 60-foot sections of rail has more of an affect from what the bridge looks like when seen from a ways away than what the railing looks like close up. I assume that actually produces an option that’s not terribly expensive. If we take the $250,000 out of the $360,000 number that you gave us, that a fairly inexpensive option, is it not? Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 6 John Vancor I think you’re right. If you don’t’ change from the DOT steel rail to the aluminum rail, you’re right. That would be significantly less money. Northbound on the turnpike right by what used to be Edgecomb Steel, it’s that rail. Or if you were coming east on the bridge over Exit 5 and you turn to go northbound, along that ramp you’ll be able to drive very close to this same kind of rail. Just if people want to get a good sense of what this rail looks like. Alderman McCarthy I drive through there all the time, and I’ve never noticed that rail. It can’t be either terribly attractive or terribly offensive. President Deane Maybe you’ve just never looked. Alderman Sheehan I think this one is on a river and it’s important to be able to see through it. I think we should make it look as good as it can. I have noticed the other stuff. It’s shiny, it’s ugly, it looks very utilitarian. You’re going to be looking at this also from the park. We have 400 people between Cotton Mill and the Clock Tower Apartment building. You have that whole backyard. I think this would be something that would be hard to change your mind later. I have the feeling with all these bricks that we have everywhere that maybe we could put in a brick encasement around certain places later or no? It’s one time? President Deane What bricks are you talking about? All the ones from the Millyard? Alderman Sheehan From the sidewalk, from the Millyard. All of it. We’ve been stashing all these bricks. It would be like we did with the park at Labine Social. The wall is built from some of the brick from the building that was taken down. It’s a nice feature. It also stops people from being able to accidentally roll through the park. I think this is important to do in a way that all the places we’ve been able to save money, this is the only part that matters, the part that people see. I do think it has an impact on the feel of approaching into that neighborhood. I do think this is where money should be invested. Mayor Lozeau You can imagine that’s one of the things we looked at. Can we use our own brick for this; we certainly have plenty. We just demolished the waste house where we saved 600,000 by not having to relocate it. Those bricks that we just took down from the store house and certainly we do have bricks downtown. The downtown bricks are not full bricks. The reason we could do the wall at Park Social was because it didn’t have to be a highway graded DOT approved wall that people drive next to. It’s just to the same sort of thing. We were able to get together enough bricks that we didn’t have to take the mortar off of them. In this circumstance what I’ve come to learn and Mr. Vancor will correct me if I’m wrong, if we’re going to use brick, it should be real brick. We can use the form liners, don’t get me wrong, I mean a whole brick. It has to be put on before the rail gets put on because it’s part of the integrity of the work. We did get an earmark, it was one of the last ones before they stopped having earmarks at the federal level, to put the sidewalks on both sides of this bridge so people will also be walking along this rail on both side. Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 7 President Deane The bricks, do they have to be water struck bricks? John Vancor No. Alderman Sheehan This is going to be around for decades and decades. People are going to wish we didn’t do it cheap. You do it cheap, you get cheap. This is the part we’re going to be looking at. This is where I think we spend the most thoughtfulness. Alderman Soucy It’s my understanding we’re still under budget on this entire project. By going with the enhancements, we’re still not going to be over budget. We will still be within the budget? John Vancor With our present projection, absolutely. Alderman Soucy I’m going to mirror Alderman Sheehan. There are a lot of things I don’t’ think sometimes we need to build or want to save a few bucks. But when we decide to build, it should be quality. There’s a lot to say about the infrastructure of the city and its sheer beauty. Today we live in a world of plastic cars and plastic playgrounds and just cheapens. This is going to be around like Alderman Sheehan said for years. If we’re going to build it, I think we need to do it right. Myself, I wouldn’t want to settle for anything less than the highest quality that we can afford to keep it within our budget. Alderman Schoneman The aluminum, is that painted or anodized aluminum. John Vancor It’s anodized. Alderman Schoneman The steel, can it be painted or is it galvanized? John Vancor It’s galvanized. Alderman Sheehan It can’t be painted John Vancor I don’t’ think paint would stay on it long. Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 8 Alderman Schoneman I think I saw a chain linked fence behind it. Is there going to be a second fence? John Vancor There will not be a second fence. The fence that’s shown is at the DOT location because there was traffic underneath. On the river bridge, there won’t be a secondary fence. Alderman Schoneman At the Baldwin Street bridge, will there be? John Vancor When the parkway opens, we’ll have to have a fence of some kind within the limits of the travel way. We’re going to have to install a fence within the limits just over the railroad as well. Alderman Schoneman I walked over the Baldwin Street Bridget the other day; I drove it and walked it. I was walking around and I saw some kids coming the other direction and they were climbing up over that rail over the roadway. I thought I can’t believe it. That’s a different subject. The galvanized rail and the aluminum rail, they are the same size? John Vancor Yes. Alderman Schoneman What’s the expected lifespan of the rail? Is there a different in the lifespan of the steel versus the aluminum rail? John Vancor That’s a great question, and I’m sorry that I don’t’ have an answer to that. Alderman Schoneman There’s no way to make the galvanized rail dark? Paint won’t work. Alderman Siegel Is there a difference in the vandalism resistance of any of the solutions proposed? Is one marketed better, worse, or are they approximately equivalent assuming we want to get some people that want to do silly things? John Vancor I don’t think between the options on the rail there’s a difference. As far as concrete versus brick, we haven’t talked about whether we would apply an anti-graffiti coating or not like we did on the underneath of Baldwin Street. Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 9 Alderman Siegel Can we assume that we should given our experience with the other bridge? I also thought Alderman McCarthy had an interesting idea reflecting the fact that this is going to be viewed from far away. Admittedly there will be some pedestrians, but I’m not sure about how much of that there will be. But looking at the potential use of breaking up the use of the way things are viewed with the current rail as proposed, it’s an idea. We’d certainly save money. President Deane Commissioner Bergeron has joined us. Alderman McCarthy If it were entirely up to me, I would probably go with this middle option. I’m simply pointing out that if we don’t want to spend the $360,000 that that costs us, I think we ought to look at the pilasters first and the rail second. I would change the rail if we could do that if we could stay within the numbers. If we can’t do, I think the brick and the pilasters are probably the most important thing to change for the distance of the bridge. I would endorse what’s on the screen at the moment. Alderman Schoneman For approximately $250,000 we can do the upgraded aluminum rail. The brick facing on the bridge ends as well as the intermediate pilasters that adds how much? Real brick. John Vancor About $110,000. Alderman Schoneman That gets us to the $360,000. If we wanted to do the more ornate, built up treatment at the overlooks, that’s another possibly $100,000? John Vancor Correct. Alderman Schoneman I like the idea of doing it so it looks good. Even if we don’t necessarily notice them consciously, I think we’re noticing them subconsciously. If we’re trying to go for a look, I do like the idea of the aluminum rail and I like the brick. I’m not sure the brick at the overlook gets us as much as the intermediate pilasters. What if we were to do the upgraded rail, brick at the two ends, brick under each lamp post but not the intermediate pilasters and just go the 61-foot length? What difference is there for that? John Vancor That’s the $360,000. Alderman Schoneman I thought that included the intermediate. Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 10 John Vancor The intermediate and the detail at the outlook, that’s what we priced out and got back at roughly $547,000. It’s roughly about $100,000 for the intermediate pilasters, actually $86,000. It’s about $100,000 for the approach detail at the overlook. President Deane How do you keep 61 feet of railing from doing what it wants to do? It would seem to me that with the intermediate pilasters, you’d have more rigidity in the railing. Now you’ve cut it in half and you have something that can support it whereas 61 feet of it is just kind of hanging out there. John Vancor The detail for this rail, if you go over the Baldwin Street Bridge and look at the posts, they are pretty sturdy and the anchors in the concrete is pretty significant. This rail doesn’t actually attach to the pilasters. It’s freestanding from the pilasters. There isn’t a bolted connection into these pilasters. President Deane It’s just base mounted. John Vancor Yes. Alderman Sheehan Going to the lights, are they the lights that are used on the Main Street Bridge? Where we have now heard the great news about sidewalks, are these lights for cars or pedestrians? John Vancor These lights are consistent with the lights that are on the Baldwin Street Bridge and the Fairmount Street Bridge, the acorns that are there. They are bright enough for the cars without having separate pedestrian lighting. Mayor Lozeau The Main Street Bridge lights if you look at them closely, they don’t really cast a lot of light there. They are historic replicas of what originally was on the pilasters that were on the Main Street Bridge rail back in the day when it was a full brick rail. We tried to mimic them and put them on the sidewalk. Commissioner Pappas I would have found it really helpful in this presentation to have prices near things. I’m trying to take notes and write things all over the place. Before people have to make a decision, it’s like going to get a car. You have to see. I’m trying to follow my own notes, but I’m not seeing prices up there. I would find that really helpful. I really feel as if the neighborhoods, outside of this particular neighborhood, really had to pay a high price for the parkway. I had asked questions at the last Board of Public Works meeting. The end of guardrails, there’s a certain type that a lot of states are now banning because it’s supposed to be helpful when people get in accidents but the way they are designed essentially opens up cars like can openers. I think that’s all the State of New Hampshire has approved at this moment. I don’t’ think we have any other options now. I think that’s what’s going to be as currently on Baldwin. I certainly hope that if we’re spending money on things that look nice that once the State of New Hampshire approves more safe to this type of rail that we upgrade it. Even though people aren’t supposed to be driving face Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 11 on those bridges, people do stupid things. Teenagers do stupid things. We all do stupid things. That’s one of the things I’d really like to see left in this budget, a replacement for something more safe because I do think the Tree Streets have lost. They’ve changed the traffic pattern. They’ve lost a lot of parking spaces. The Baldwin Street Bridge clearly needed to be replaced, but it was really kind of a quaint old bridge and it’s changed the feel of the neighborhood. I hate to see us just spend all the money just because that’s what’s going into the Millyard. I think that’s why the parkway was built. I think folks that live in the neighborhood have really had to pay the price. I don’t want to see them stuck with substandard products. Alderman Donchess My question is about the design that was developed or chosen in the course of the International Design Competition. At the time it was released with some fanfare and rightly so. The design that was chosen accomplished a significant improvement in that it changes as traffic comes off the bridge. The International Design Competition design deals with the area just south of the bridge as cars coming over enter the Millyard neighborhood. It creates a little square and alters the traffic pattern a little bit and changes what is essentially kind of a highway, high speed road feel. It slows down the traffic and creates more of a neighborhood feel that would help integrate the neighborhood with this project. I don’t think at this point the International Design Competition’s recommendations are in the design. Why is that the case and can the International Design results be implemented in the design south of the river? John Vancor A lot of the good ideas that were in those entries had to do with the Millyard growth after transportation improvements. The kind of opportunities and redevelopment that might occur with the improved access. Specific to the question, one of the really interesting ideas was coming in a common with the roadway going about a rectangular area. We’re trying to move something on the order of 18,000 or 19,000 cars a day on this parkway because it is transportation enhancement. We looked at rounding those corners and the limitations that we have on the right-of-way. Federal Highway has approved this project. They’ve issued a record of decision based on the environmental impacts that were reported. Part of the environmental impacts and the way they look at the right-of-way impacts. There’s a limitation as to how much right-of-way acquisition Federal Highway would participate in and have the project use federal funds. There’s a limitation as to how much right-of-way we can acquire. Those two things together, as we tried to round the corners to improve traffic circulation, and the right-of-way constraints we had, we ended up basically drawing a roundabout in the middle of the Millyard which would serve other than the interior area wouldn’t be as big as the Design competition entry. We tried to see can we fit a roundabout in there. It was actually a new thought I don’t’ think anyone ever had considered that came about because of that competition. As we looked at it a single-lane roundabout would not process the traffic. It would take a two lane roundabout to process the traffic. As we tried to locate that circle within the Millyard what we found was without impacting buildings there, we simply couldn’t move the traffic and have an alignment for a roundabout intersection without a significant additional impact to the right-of-way. That’s why the roundabout concept wasn’t pursued any further. If we can’t get a tight circle to fit, a rectangular with more space isn’t going to fit without acquiring a lot more right-of-way than the Federal Highway has given authority to this project to acquire. Another point is while the competition entries focused south of the bridge, some of them also looked north of the bridge. A couple really looked at making a connection from the front of Franklin Street, somehow coming in and making a connection there. Although the environmental evaluation allowed for that and the federal record of decision allows for a connecting, one of the sketches that were provided in the competition really made us stop and realize that even though it’s allowed, it would be very difficult to build by the design that was anticipated when the environmental re-evaluation was done. Thereto, north of the river we looked at what if in the future we try to facilitate that connection. Before we were done with that, we started to think that thereto is a place where a roundabout could actually be a very good option. Thereto we tried to process the traffic. What we found was with the geometric constraints of the railroad and the river and some grading over there, we just couldn’t put a roundabout in there. By the time we were done looking at that, we realized that the initial design and actually the old design of the Broad Street Parkway, all had a fundamental assumption that the river bridge was going to be basically almost level. We realized to Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 12 facilitate future access as considered by those entries, it would really be better to lower that end of the bridge to have a slope to the river bridge so it basically touches down on existing ground north of the river. We couldn’t fit that roundabout in and we’re not making the front of the Franklin Street connection now largely because it involves a very difficult design railroad crossing. One benefit of looking at those competition entries was we ended up realizing that lowering the river bridge on that side allowed us to eliminate very considerable lengths of retaining wall. There is a retaining wall out there, but there would be quite a bit more retaining wall. Working with the design engineers, I think what we realized afterwards was we saved about $750,000 in total. We took the transportation aspects in the entries seriously and looked at it. We couldn’t fit in this case a roundabout that would accomplish much of what that entry showed within the right-of-way that we had. Alderman Donchess It still seems to me the highway feel of this thing south of the river may end up being a problem. What do your projections show the impact on the Main Street traffic will be? How much will the Main Street traffic be reduced as a result of what you project will be used on the Broad Street Parkway? John Vancor The Nashua Regional Planning Commission has a regional model. They did the traffic projections. The environmental re-evaluation document contains some diagrams of that. I would have to consult back to that. Alderman Donchess Would you mind e-mailing that to me or getting that to me in some way or the whole board? John Vancor Certainly. I think there’s some very good charts in that environmental re-evaluation that will help answer that question. If my memory is wrong on that, I will request that NRPC provide that. They ran the modeling. Mayor Lozeau That document is online on the city website for the Broad Street Parkway. It’s in a searchable format. It’s the “record of decision.” You’ll see it when you go on the Broad Street Parkway website. There’s some different options to look at documents. Alderman McCarthy The design that had the extra detail around the outlook in the middle of the bridge, just looking at it strikes me as odd the way the entrances and exits line up. I would almost expect the position of the end of the bridge abutment and the one at the beginning of the outlook to be complimentary and not the same. It looks like entrance, entrance, exit, exit, as you go across the bridge which just strikes me as a little strange if we keep that detail in. Alderman Siegel But it is an entranceway so the aesthetic sense is of an entrance way. If you flipped it around it would look really strange. There’s no win. Alderman McCarthy It offends my sense of recursion is what it does. Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 13 Commissioner Pappas How much does that one cost? Mayor Lozeau $92,000. That’s for two sides of the bridge. John Vancor The detail at the outlook is $92,000. This entire concept is the $547,000. PUBLIC COMMENT Jim Cutter, 86 Palm Street. How tall is the railing? President Deane 42 inches, I believe. Mr. Cutter You’re going to have people coming onto the bridge sightseeing. What are you going to do about the safety? You are going to have people jumping off or falling off the bridge. There should be the same safety feature added to these at the top so no one can climb over. Ed Mooney, 44 ½ Amherst Street. I love the new Baldwin Street Bridge. The aluminum railing and the lamp post and the view I think transforms the neighborhood. Live nearby. I don’t live as some residents do on either end of that bridge. I think it is a really, nice attractive piece of work. For the Nashua River crossing, my reaction is that I would prefer something that is as utilitarian and easy to maintain as possible that’s consistent with aesthetics. That speaks to the aluminum railing and the lamp posts. I think the look outs are a great idea. For some reason, I don’t’ react well to the brick. I understand the desire to kind of reflect the Mill Yard and reflect the heritage, but those mills were built by capitalists. Brick was structural. It was the material they had on hand. What’s left behind is certainly a great reminder of Nashua’s past, and I think it’s great. In this case, the brick is more decorative than anything else. If it were there, I didn’t think I’d react badly to it, but for some reason there’s some utilitarian sense I have regarding how it was used I the past as a structural component that was just an instrument to producing wool and fabrics and that type of thing. When you got inside the mills there was iron and machinery and dust. I kind of react not badly and understanding fully the desire to reflect the mill itself, for some reason just using it decoratively doesn’t sit well with me right now but I can’t say exactly why but I think it has to do with the way it was used in the past and the way it is proposed to be used here. I don’t know how much of a maintenance issue it would be, repointing the chimney. If you going to use brick, you should use real brick. Over time there will be a maintenance issue. If you wanted to do something decorative, I was wondering would it be possible to maybe commission statutory of one form or another. I don’t know if there are any plans for medallions, castings of one form or another. Other than that, I think you’re doing great, and I really appreciate it. Special Bd. of Aldermen – 06/03/14 Page 14 ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN SCHONEMAN THAT THE NOVEMBER 13, 2014 MEETING OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN BE ADJOURNED MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared adjourned at 7:04 p.m. Attest: Patricia Piecuch, Deputy City Clerk BASE BASE BASE BASE BASE BASE BASE BASE BASEBASE BASE DESIGN OPTION BASE BASE DESIGN OPTION OUTLOOK DESIGN OPTION DESIGN OPTION PLAN OUTLOOK OUTLOOK OUTLOOK PLAN PLAN BASE BID DESIGN OPTION BASE 0 50 BASE BASE DESIGN OPTION OUTLOOK PLAN BRICK OPTION  DESIGN OPTION BASE BASE BASE DESIGN OPTION OUTLOOK PLAN DESIGN OPTION DESIGN OPTION BASE 0 50 DESIGN OPTION BASE BASE DESIGN OPTION OUTLOOK PLAN DESIGN OPTION