NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The School Building Committee on Tuesday approved the preliminary design program submission for the Greylock/Brayton school project. 

 

The elements of the design plan have been reviewed over a number of meetings; Tuesday's unanimous vote means the entire package can now be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority. 

 

Tim Alix of Colliers International, the owner's project manager, reminded the committee that the program was the review of both school sites and potential development of those sites. 

 

"We have the two school sites, whether they're new buildings or add-ons or renos, to determine if your program for how you want to deliver education in North Adams would be able to be done on those particular sites," he said. "So that the building, or the plan, is going to be matching your [educational] program versus the other way around and trying to shoehorn your your program into your existing buildings."

 

The PDP will demonstrate to the MSBA that it's feasible to construct or renovate one of the schools, Alix continued, and that the committee will now spend the next few months "really zeroing in on what's the preferred option."

 

Matthew Sturz of Colliers said the MSBA has give 12 weeks of flexibility in the feasibility phase for the committee to work through options and that it could get up to another six months at the discretion of the executive director. This reflects the city's need to revamp its project scope after the MSBA recommended that Brayton School be considered along with Greylock School in light of dropping enrollment. 

 

Julia McFadden of TSKP Studio led the presentation on the PDP package that includes the educational plan, site plan options, architectural objectives, capital budget statements, design enrollment certification letters, directory and schedule as well as documentation from the education visioning process and meeting minutes. 

 

Also included are the building analysis of both sites including mechanical and electrical, structural, size, current conditions and a traffic study. Each site had options to address only building code deficiencies and repairs; an addition/renovation for both a prekindergarten-2 and preK-6 school and a new school each for a preK-2 and preK-6. The committee is still reviewing a possible grade reconfiguration. 

 

"So these were all done at a very, very kind of high level to kind of set the outer perimeter of what you might expect in terms of projects," McFadden said. "In the next phase, we might be working with you to hone in on which ones of these are the most feasible to continue forward, perhaps three of them to continue into more in-depth development."

 

Committee member David Moresi asked if the program took into account the cost estimates revealed at a prior meeting that ranged from $55 million to $90 million.

 

Mayor Jennifer Macksey said she'd asked the consultants "to go and sharpen their pencils."

 

"My heart is still a little bit different from last meeting. But we're looking at the numbers and we don't want to water down the project but at the same time, we have to be realistic to what we can support as a community," she said. "A $90 million school kind of set me off my chair as I'm sure some of you could tell. But we did have a discussion with our consultants and we are looking at what does this mean, what does it look like in terms with the cost of construction."

 

The consultants said the program package being submitted did not take into account these early estimates. 

 

"But what we can do now in this next phase, as I mentioned, in the preferred schematic is to hone in probably on three options, or possibly more, to really refine kind of the scope of the project in ways that will meet budget and meet your highest priorities," McFadden said. "That probably means there might be some compromises on some aspects of the project."

 

Member Bill Chapman asked if the PDP would lock the committee into anything and questioned going with just updating the building to code. 

 

TSKP's Randall Luther said building codes are not retroactive so the schools meet code because they are existing buildings.    

 

"If we wanted to meet current code, then that becomes a much bigger animal, because, for example, the energy code … when you have to go back to insulate walls that aren't insulated we need to replace all the mechanical systems and to replace mechanical systems you gotta replace the ceilings, you gotta replace the floors because I'm going to destroy them in the process of doing so," he said. "It's the mechanical upgrades and in chasing that through that really drives most of the cost. 

 

"When you see those big numbers to bring the buildings up to code, it's because meeting current energy code just requires so much related work because you have to just make a mess of everything."

 

Just doing the bare minimum to update the accessibility issues are in themselves pretty extensive, Luther said. 

 

The next meeting was tentatively set for June 20 at 4:30 p.m.