 So by my clock at 6.35, is it okay if we get started? Would you like to wait a few more? It's okay. Okay. Great. All right. Good evening, everyone. And thank you. I see some of you were at least sitting outside enjoying this beautiful day. So I guess there are some benefits of zoom, right? So I think with that, I'm just going to share my screen. We have a presentation this evening. And what I would like to do is also introduce some of our team that you may or may not know. I'm Donna Dinesca with Dinesco Design. And I don't see, it's hard for me to see everyone with me as Rick Rice with Dinesco Design. Maybe you guys can just wait. Tim Cooper with Dinesco Design. And then we have some consultants with us this evening. We also have Janet Bernardo from Horsley Whitten, who is our civil engineer and stormwater consultant. We have Mike Talbot from OTO, our geotechnical engineer. And then we also have special guests this evening, Tim Thompson from PAR Engineering, our traffic consultants. And I thought I said, David Loring and David Loring as well. That runs out our team this evening. We may or may not all have speaking parts, but we're going to try to get through the presentation quickly so that we can really have a dialogue. But what we wanted to do was share with you the updated information that we have this evening. So we just want to provide a little bit of community feedback and the criteria that's guiding the design. Talk about the different site attributes and talk through those a little bit more with you. I just want to thank everyone for their public comments and information as you know, these sites intimately talk about the educational considerations that affect the design concepts and then a brief overview of the timeline. So what we've learned through an enormous community engagement is that the new school truly needs to be an integrated student-centered school with outdoor connections with a healthy environment that's sustainable as well as cost effective. What we've learned through the community forums and visioning sessions is our takeaways are that it is a student-centered learning experience that it's collaborative. There's outdoor learning experiences. It supports special education and that we want to take care of the students from an environmental perspective. So you're going to see a lot of these themes kind of are recurring. We'll talk about from an architectural perspective and goals again, an inclusive learning environment, ensuring the special education is integrated, that we have collaborative spaces, outdoor learning, cost effective. And then as we look at sustainability, make sure there's abundant of natural light, make sure there's indoor environmental quality or air quality is obviously taken into consideration. And then of course, future thinking, not only for the educational program that might shift over the last next 50 years, but also the what ifs of COVID and everything else we could not plan for. Building and community goals, we're organizing the building in a way that can be used as a community asset after hours and most importantly that it fits with the environment and the surroundings and that it truly is a community resource. And then just again, talking about the site and sustainable goals, ensuring that we have ample outdoor learning, recreation for the community as it is a community asset, that we meet the net zero energy bylaw, that it's a healthy environment, and that whatever we do, we have to make sure that the training for staff is there to support your building. So we had a couple of community forums and what we gained out of it is that flexible classrooms and spaces jump to the very top as far as exciting design patterns, classroom neighborhoods, and then as you can see as it goes down all the way to extended learning spaces. So all of these are really truly helping us inform the design and the layouts of the school as we look at all these considerations. So I'm going to turn it over to Janet and she'll talk about the sites. Good evening. My name is Janet Bernardo. I'm a professional civil engineer with the Horsley-Witton Group, and our role is stormwater, site layout, grading, and kind of supporting the wetlands permitting as needed. The Fort River site is 31 and a half acres located south of Main Street and access from Southeast Street. Fort River is on the east side of the property, the blue line on your screen. And there's a twin 44 by 27 inch arch culvert, the light blue line on the west side of the existing school. And that discharges to a brook located along the south property boundary, which eventually ties back to Fort River. There is a flood prone conservancy. The flood prone conservancy zone district is the yellow shaded area here. And it covers a portion of the east side of the property, and it's related to, but it's not contiguous with the 100-year floodplain. The Amher Zoning Bylaws allows for educational use to apply for a special permit to build within this flood prone conservancy district if so desired. So there is potential for locating the school if that is the best use of the property within that area. There's a FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA, provided a 1983 flood insurance rate map, which shows this light blue bubble that illustrates the 100-year floodplain, and the darker blue kind of semi-circle is the 500-year floodplain. In 2021, FEMA has revised that 100-year floodplain line to be closer to the 171-foot contour, which is similar to the black dashed line on the screen. So the FEMA 100-year floodplain line will be pushed back, and the town is supposedly going to adopt this new floodplain line sometime later this year. There are a number of wetlands around the property associated with Fort River and the 200-foot riverfront area that is associated with Fort River and the brook that's on the south side. The southernmost finger, the little wetland at the bottom there, kind of comes between the athletic fields. It's maybe, you might not realize that it's a wetland wing out there. It's kind of a depression in the grass. And that is approximately 3,500 square feet, that little finger. And according to the Wellens Protection Act, a project is allowed to fill up to 5,000 square feet under the local permitting process. So it would mean working with and going to a permitting process with the Conservation Commission if it was decided to fill that finger. The likelihood is we wouldn't be looking to fill any other wetlands and at the same time where the local permitting only allows 5,000 square feet. So considering the various constraints on the building area there, the buildable area for the Fort River site is about 12.8 acres, the red, what's in that red area. Through some permitting, we could expand that to about 14.6 acres by pulling back some of the wetlands and the floodplain line as well as the flood prone conservancy area. And there's 19.8 acres of usable land which could be used for the playing fields as well. So it changes quite a bit. We did some initial soil testing. We understand that the groundwater is very high and that the soils of the site really do not infiltrate very well. So this is not a structural issue, but it is something that we would need to manage from the building as well as from the stormwater. So we would consider raising the surface grade of the building and the parking lots. We would consider raising the playing fields and adding sub drainage to allow the fields to be drier. We would divert the stormwater and the groundwater away from the buildings by putting in foundation drains and we would utilize constructed wetlands and bioswales for stormwater management. The idea of having small bio retention areas similar to these photographs basically coming off of the parking lot into bioswales, having kind of integrating them into play areas, and they would eventually kind of small areas would be connected together to provide water quality treatment and bringing that all the stormwater back down to the Brook and Fort River. So this could be used as an educational opportunity as well for the students of the school. I believe Mike Talbot is going to talk about the soils. Hello, everyone. I'm Mike Talbot. I'm the geotechnical engineering on a team. And Fort River school, it's characterized by river, recent deposits from the Fort River over soft farb silt and clay, which are glacial lake deposits. It's a profile that's pretty common in the Connecticut River Valley. We see this type of soil profile a lot. The soils are soft. So you have some issues with bearing capacity, building settlement. As Janet had said, the soils are poorly draining and we have a high groundwater table. All those, those are issues that we see quite commonly in the valley. We can, we can address that a couple of ways. We can, as I said, one way to address the bearing capacity and then address the groundwater is to raise the building with some amount of fill to get it out of the wet soils and get it into on good bearing material. That causes a settlement issue. We can do a couple of things there. We, you can use rammed aggregate peers, which are basically stone columns. You can, they can be driven into the soil to reinforce and strengthen the soft soils. And you can also do what's called preloading. That's putting a soil load onto the soft clays under the site that's equal to the weight of the new building we'd be building. And that basically pre compresses the soil. So you get less settlement during the service life of the structure. So those things are, both of that is we have done on many other sites in the Connecticut river valley in there. They're pretty common techniques to be used. So this is, this is a schematic that how you would treat the high groundwater. It's important to drain the water away from the building and to provide a capillary moisture break I understand the existing structure is damp and it's what there's some moisture contents in it. Some moisture in the building, which is a concern and an issue. The way you would address that this, these sketches show a perimeter drain, which, which takes water and drains it away from the building. You would put underneath the slab a capillary break. So you're, you are separating the building from the, the groundwater table and you have an open gravel, which the water prevents the water from wicking up. And then you would do a moisture barrier. And it's my understanding at this point, this is believed that there's not a moisture barrier under the existing school and the existing school probably doesn't have a lot of these features. So, but that's how we would address this two schematics one here showing the renovation on the left and what it would look like in the new construction. They use a lot of the same technologies, but they are a slightly different design. Right. If I could add. Yeah. It could, the question could come up. How do foundation drains work? When the groundwater is high and we are actually able to daylight and drain the area around the buildings to the south by gravity, which will help wick the water level down. And again, as Mike says, we're trying to control control moisture and keep moisture off of the contact of the slab and not control the water level. But these are both then effective techniques in reducing moisture transmission to building interiors. All right. Janet. Sorry. Sorry. Back again. The Wildwood site is 14.3 acres and located south of strong street. And this site doesn't have that. The Welland issues that the Fort Rivers site does, but it does have some steep slopes on the north and the east sides. So the buildable and usable area is about 10.5 acres, which would include the school and the playing fields. The idea of not. Not getting too into the steep slopes. The soils are very similar to the Fort Rivers site. Amazingly enough. Basically this is more of a bowl because the two sides are sloping down and the surface water runs down this, down the steep slopes. And so groundwater is only two to five feet below the surface. Again, the soil testing showed that the soils do not infiltrate very well. So we would manage it in a similar way by putting sub drainage in the playing fields, diverting the storm water away from the buildings and proposing some fire retention areas and constructed wetlands through the parking lot and the playgrounds and the play fields to get itself draining it all south towards Dan Brook. So similar, similar design. And Mike, I guess you're back. Yeah, I just want to correct Janet. Slightly the soils have actually very different on the two sites, but the effect of those, the soils conditions are basically the same. So you had the same sort of issues. In the at Wildwood, the soils are highland soils, the glacial till and the hard pack that you see in the hills around the Amherst area are very poor draining, very, very hard soils, a mixture of gravel clay, silt, and the water will tend to pond and doesn't drain very well. And you tend to get shallow groundwater table. So that it's basically the same effect as what Fort River, but Fort River is in a low-lying area by the river. While this is in a more of an upland area where you have poor draining soils that result in a high groundwater table. Secondly, Fort River, Wildwood, the ball fields where we would likely be building a new school was actually filled ground when they built the existing school, we believe where they cut into the hill and they moved fill into these playing fields. So you have non-engineered fill underneath the playing fields and underneath the area we would look at building the new school. That this is common solutions to that. One of them, the most common one that actually Rick, I've done a couple jobs with Tennisco with Rick specifically where we've excavated the soil and recompacted it in place. So we basically dig up the site and recompact the soil there to make a good engineered material that's dense and suitable for founding a new building on it. An alternative which may be cheaper would be using the same aggregate peers to densify the soils and place stiffen the soils so you wouldn't have to dig it up. It's a matter of cost. During design, we would evaluate both alternatives and we would select the one that's most effective. And that would both result in a good engineering engineered material that you could found the building on. As far as dealing with moisture and a renovation scenario here, I would also like to add that we're at Fort River where there's a proven moisture issue that's been experienced over the years. At Wildwood, we would not need to go through the exercise of removing an existing floor slab to put capillary brakes and drainage pipes in. However, we do have the opportunity to have a on-the-surface applied vapor barrier because vapor barriers underslaps are surprisingly a relatively new building component. And without any vapor barrier, that moisture transmission would ultimately get through the slab. So that's something that could be done to the existing Wildwood renovation. This is a site that it's applicable to. OTO did a project about 10 years ago at East Hampton High School, which is maybe 10 miles from Amherst as the crow flies. Very similar soil conditions to Fort River. As I said, Fort River is the conditions are pretty common for the Connecticut River Valley. We have these low-lying areas with the soft clays in the valley near the river. You see it here. The school is in East Hampton. The little green dot you can see over there right there is where the East Hampton High School is right near River Thread Pond, where they have the new walkway on the pond by City Hall in East Hampton. But very similar conditions. And it had a swamp in the back. They built it near the existing high school. They filled in the low-lying area added fill and they had the soft clay and we addressed it with a combination of, as you can see, aggregate piers. We preloaded the soil out of the soil fill so that the new site had felt the weight of the existing school and the fill before we built the new school so that we controlled settlement of the school that way. And we raised the site so we controlled the groundwater. We have a nice dry school. It's performed for 10 years without excessive settlement. And it's operated well. And also we use aggregate piers. We have a lot of high school. We have a lot of high school schools when you design and have some engineering challenges by their nature with the loading. So East Hampton High School had that. Probably the Fort River school. But there are two. You may, if you chose Fort River, you may see aggregate piers as part of the solution. So. Thank you. So I think we would like to just pause with our presentation and take any questions or comments that people may have. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comments section. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments section of the sites. Feel free to raise your hand. I know we've received a lot of comments and writing. So we appreciate it. But if anyone has, well, we have our experts. I'm aligned here tonight. Wow. Okay. Like sometimes I'm being told that no questions is in a bad thing that maybe, maybe we address them. So we'll just keep going. Oh, Allison. Thank you. Thank you. In the back of my mind, I remember there were times when. Some place they just filled in low lying areas or swamps or whatever and found later that it was illegal. And I'm wondering, you know, if you're, if you're talking about anything like this. I think that probably they were in that. And the cases I'm thinking of maybe they, they did fill something in, but they had to build. You know, like, you know, change it somewhere else too. To accommodate it. I don't know whether this has anything to do with that, but, but why don't you talk about filling in spaces that came to my mind. So if, if you're referring to, I'll just try to come back to the, you're talking about the, I'm assuming the Fort River site. I think if you're talking about the. Reconstructed wetlands down here. What Janet had mentioned is that DEP allows us to. Mitigate these with up to 5,000 feet of area. We could fill it, but. What we need to do is replicate it. Up at 10,000. So it's a two to one replication. So what we would do would be filling if we, you know, took a little sliver of the finger here, what we would do is we would replicate it and take advantage of daylighting the culvert. And we would turn that into wetlands and we could also kind of connect the two wetlands from the East and, and this finger here. Thank you. You may have said something like that, but it went through my head. No, no, no. Thank you for asking. Thank you for asking. I meant to say something like that. Sarah Marshall. Thank you. Not this slide. I don't think, but a different one that showed the buildable area at Fort River. I just wanted to clarify. Buildable, including the fields or just literally where you could put a building. Yeah. So usable. Is different than buildable. So thank you. So usable is where we could construct the building, which we're saying currently is 12.8 acres without any of the reduction in the flood prone conservancy wetlands or the modified flood zone area. The buildable would increase to 14.6 approximately. If we chose to address some of those issues. So usable is 19.8. And in both situations where we could put field, we can replace the current existing fields that are there. We'll just jump into traffic. Tim. Oh, Kathy. I just wanted to add to that. Because actually Rudy Perkins brought up our code on the flood plan conservancy. We have to go if we move into that area at all with the wetlands. We have to go through a site plan review, potentially special permit, but for if it's green and grassland, we can use it. You know, so it's, it's an issue of covering it up versus not covering it up, but we would have to go through both the planning board, potentially the zoning board and the conservation commission would get be involved with, because it has to do with the water, the water and the wetlands and protected species. It's not that it's not doable. It's just someone would have to bless it. Yeah. And all of that, even, even, even with the potential reconstructed wetlands, we would have to go through the entire permitting review. And so, you know, for us, and you'll see all of our concepts that we've laid out are respectful of the current constraints of the site and the current lines, just, just to be sure it can be done and, you know, because it is an ask, it's not a given for sure. So we, and, you know, some of those are there for a reason. So we just want to be mindful of that. Christine Lindstrom. Yeah. Hi. I appreciate you making the distinction between usable and buildable. It's been helpful with the Fort River site. Are you able to do the same for the Wildwood site? Because the, I guess I more specifically. Was curious about the sloping. And does that make it, you know, is it because of a grade that it's therefore unusable or unbuild the sloping areas of the site? Does that make it unusable or unbuildable or is it just that? You know, there are other expenses that accompany that. I just wanted a little bit more information there. Yeah. So for the Wildwood, what we're saying is the total site is 14.3 acres and the usable and buildable combined because we don't have wetlands or other restrictions. We're saying our is approximately 10.5 acres is because we're recommending not building into the hill too much just because of the slope. So that's what we're talking about. And we would be, we are talking about, you know, it might be beneficial for the project to build partially into the hill, but you really start incrementally having quite a bit of a cost if we build much further into the hill. And the other portion is the driveway to the childhood. Thank you. This, the childhood center where we're using. We have to remain, keep that accessible at all times. And we can come back. So if you think of other questions, feel free, we can always come back. So I will turn it over to going ahead of myself. Sorry, no peeking to Tim. Thank you, Donna. And good evening, everyone. Again, my name is Tim Thompson. I'm a traffic engineer with Park corporation. And tonight I'm going to share with you an overview of the results of our recently completed traffic study. So before I get into some of the details, I just want to, you know, explain what the goal of our traffic study was at this point. And in really what our traffic study is looking at is the, the impacts to adjacent roadways and intersections associated with the traffic generated by increasing the number of students at both of these sites. So our first step in our traffic study was conducting in the existing conditions assessment and I'll just quickly. Describe to the existing conditions on each of the sites. What's shown in this diagram here is the Fort River. Site and what you can see here in blue is circulation pattern for parent drop off and pickups and then in yellow, there's a bus drop off and pick up circulation pattern. So this site has two, two separate locations. Bus and parent operations are separate. And also I should note that at the parent drop off locations, there are actually two locations where pickup and drop off occurs. So this actually works quite well. Currently, and that's in part due to the separation of bus and parent traffic, but it's also in part due to the staff that's on site that helps control parent movements, both entering and exiting the parking lot. Next slide, Donna. Then a wildwood is actually a fairly similar operation here where where bus traffic and parent traffic is separated on the site. And again, there are actually two locations within the parent drop off area where pickup and drop off occurs. So it's actually separated by, but it's also in part due to the separation of bus and parent grade, which allows some of the younger children to operate independently from some of the older students. Again, this operation operates fairly well currently. And again, there's a lot of staff on site that helps control these movements in both the morning and afternoon dismissal periods. So when we start to look at evaluating the traffic impacts associated with each of the sites, there are future scenario out into the future. So we actually, we look seven years into the future. And what you can see here is a list of other projects occurring within the town of Amherst that were considered that the traffic generation from these sites were considered in the projection of our future scenario development. Next slide. And then you can see here, we have a rather large study area and each of our study is denoted with one of those red dots. So you can see here that we have the, the Wildwood site shown in the north part of our figure. And then the Fort River site down in the bottom right corner. And the number of study intersections that were, were looked at as, as part of this study. And it's really, you know, encompassed by pleasant street to the, to the west, east street to the, to the east, strong street to the north and college street to the south. So we selected these intersections to really try to capture how traffic would be redistributed. If the elementary students were, were located at, you know, concentrated at one of these schools as opposed to both. So when we look at our traffic study, really the, the nuts and bolts of it is what we call a capacity analysis. And when we're doing a capacity analysis, we're looking at each of those individual intersections within our study area and determining how traffic operations, how efficiently it operates at each of those intersections. And we use what's called level of service to help us as a quality measurement for assessing operations at each intersection. So level of service is, is actually determined by the amount of delay that a vehicle experiences as they traverse the intersection. So this is it's quantified separately for signalized intersections versus unsignalized intersections and level of service or LOS, as you can see in the column on the left is broken up into a, a system ranging from a through F and the amount of delay for each of those ratings is shown in both of the columns to the right. Tim, I just would like to point that this is the seconds, the time that, that you wait at each intersection. Thank you, Donna. So for an intersection that would be operating at level of service, you're experiencing less than 10 seconds per vehicle on average while you maneuver through that intersection. So the next few slides show some tables that were included in our traffic report. And we don't mean to overwhelm you with the amount of information shown in this, these slides, but I'd just like to highlight the level of detail that this traffic study gets into. So for each intersection within our study area, we're actually looking at a level of service and delay associated with each movement at each intersection. So you, in the set, the column second over from the left, you can see, you know, for example, the northbound movement, we're looking at the left movement and through and right movement and approach total all separately. So it's, it's a rather in depth assessment of traffic conditions that we're looking out throughout this entire study area. And over the next couple of slides, I just want to highlight a couple of figures within each of these, each of these tables. And what the tables that are shown in these next few slides really highlight the intersections that are of greatest concern for us based on the results of the assessment. So this first table here is showing the intersection of main street, northeast street and southeast street. And this intersection is just north of the Fort River site to signalize intersection there. And I just want to point to some of the, the apps that you see across the top line for the northbound movement. So you can see that the worst condition here is the scenario where the school is constructed at the Fort River site, which is of course to be expected. And where, you know, we're seeing a level service of F there with the school being constructed there just given the amount of traffic that's associated with the additional students there. You know, we see a level service F. So this is an area that we really want to focus any potential improvements on. Next slide. And this, this table again shows the same results from the same intersection. This is particularly during the school dismissal period. You can see in that, that same approach northbound, we aren't showing F. We're showing more season D's. Generally when schools dismissed, it's not, it doesn't coincide with a peak hour of commuter traffic, which the morning does. So typically when we look at schools, we see that those conditions in the morning when commuter traffic and school traffic are overlapping. Again, closer to the Fort River site. Southeast, Southeast Street at College Street. You know, you can see a couple of D's and F's towards the columns over on the right. But really if you compare those to the conditions that are in the center there, the, what we call the future no build, which is our future projection without any school at the Fort River site. There, there's only a slight increase in, in delay per vehicle. Again, this shows the school dismissal hour. The previous one had shown the morning peak hour. Again, you can see a series of D's and E's at this approach. Again, not too much of an increase compared to the no build scenario. This table here, we're specifically looking at the Fort River entrance, which is the driveway located on the south side of the site. Under our future conditions assessment with the school being constructed at Fort River. We, we know that the existing exit up towards Main Street can experience some challenges with exiting the site due to the queue that develops at the adjacent signal. So in our build scenario for the Fort River site, we actually moved all left hand turn movements from the site to the south driveway. So what you see here is under the condition where the Fort River site is used. You can see that westbound turn, which would be the turn exiting the site. We have a level of service F for that exiting movement. Again, looking at the school dismissal peak hour at the same intersection. That westbound left turn from the site is no longer an F, but an E during this condition where there's generally less traffic on the adjacent roadways. Again, this is a, this shows the intersection of East Street with the Fort River exit. You can see here that with the addition of the school at the site, we're seeing a level of service A's and B's. So this intersection at the entrance is not of major concern for us. So I had mentioned that the intersection of Main Street and Southeast Street, we are experiencing a level of service F during the AM peak hour. And we've come up with one alternative to help mitigate that traffic concern. So the conceptual plan that's shown on the right here includes the widening of the northbound approach to the intersection to really lengthen that left turn lane to help us get more space for vehicles to stack that are making that northbound left turn movement. And then we're also looking at replacing the traffic signal equipment at that intersection. Specifically, we'd be looking at modifying some of the signal phasing at that intersection to better accommodate the potential for increased traffic there. So this table here shows a comparison of the condition at that signalized intersection adjacent to Fort River with no mitigation and then with the intersection improvements as shown on the previous slide. So you can see that a number of those F's for the northbound approach are bettered to ease and ease. Moving towards the a couple of the intersections towards the Wildwood site and focusing more on the Wildwood alternative in and of itself. A couple of intersections that stood out in our analysis are presented in the next several slides. First one here being the intersection at East Pleasant Street at Strong Street, which is the stop controlled intersection just to the west of Fort River. What you can see here is with construction of the school at the Wildwood site. In the morning, we're looking at a level of service D for that westbound movement, which is the stop controlled movement during the morning and then a level of service F in the afternoon. So in the afternoon when you have more vehicles that are leaving the school site approaching and then we looked at improvement or we looked specifically at the Wildwood driveway and the intersection with Strong Street and you can see with the during the morning peak hour we're looking at a level of service of C and then the school dismissal we're looking at a level of service B. So a mitigation option that we're investigating at the entrance to the Wildwood site is the revision of that existing stop controlled intersection into a roundabout. So this is under preliminary design. We're just looking at it at a conceptual level right now. And then some other mitigation alternatives that we're considering at the East Pleasant Street and Strong Street intersection include the potential for adding turn lanes at that intersection. We're also looking to see if traffic volumes at that intersection would warrant signalization as we look in the future. So again this just shows the potential for improvements with the introduction of the roundabout at the at the Wildwood driveway. You can see all the way to the right that we'd be looking at a level of service A for all approaches as compared to the situation without the roundabout where in the morning we would have a level of service C for that movement exiting the site. So I will pause this is really it's it is new information. So and it's a lot kind of comprehend and take in all at once but happy to pause and ask any questions. Nancy. I must say I'm impressed with the level of detail of the traffic study as well as all the rest of the work that you've done behind the scenes on soils and everything else. My concern about the traffic is less about the cars and the delay although that has to be handled as it is about the pedestrian access to those schools and I'm wondering whether the Dinesco study does anything says anything about that or whether there's something else you're looking at related to pedestrian access. Go ahead Tim. Yeah, so I'm glad you brought that up and pedestrian safety and access to the site is certainly something that we're considering not only in the potential mitigation options that we're considering but but also with the connectivity into the site itself. So whether that be wider sidewalks buffer separated from traffic potential for bike lanes those are all items that will be considering as the design progresses specifically with the mitigation option of the roundabout of the Wildwood site one benefit of roundabouts is not only to help accommodate traffic movements but it also helps as a traffic calming element in reducing speeds. So to have traffic devices such as a roundabout in front of the school we see really as a safety improvement as well and that it will help reduce vehicle speeds directly in front of the school. So while our study and the details I went through tonight focused a lot on vehicular traffic again as the design progresses pedestrians and bicycles will in their access to the site and safety will certainly be considered as well. I would just like to add that we're working closely with DPW with Guilford and Jason near town engineer as well and everyone is so knowledgeable and helpful and it's a combined effort to to improve the intersections in and around the schools. Christine. I have a question to Nancy you know having spent I guess we're one of the five walkers at Wildwood and you know there are there's lots of safety issues but then also we live right next to the UMass campus where there's a large construction project happening and traffic mitigation that's not working that well and students are getting hit on the road. So the concerns about pedestrians and you know cyclists I think are real because you know it happens around here a and then be you know there's very little accommodation for pedestrians and walkers already which I think contributes to such a low number of folks you know being willing to let their kids walk and roll to school and so you know the fact that that it doesn't seem like it's going to be sort of directly addressed in this mitigation study which I understand is just about the vehicles but one example would be how long does your fourth grader have to stand at an intersection that might be you know a little bit more clogged than normal because of construction happening or again mitigation issues. Those are critical elements for parents deciding to opt in or opt out of you know their kid walking and cycling which I think we would all agree would ultimately be the best not only for the term during which the new school is getting built and we have to have mitigation strategies in place but also we have to make sure that we have to be able to do that. Thank you. Sarah Marshall. Is it fair to say that the East street main street intersection even aside from the Fort River school traffic is busier and therefore the impact of building on those tables that I didn't notice maybe I just didn't see them for the Wildwood site that East pleasant just isn't as trafficked as East street. So that's one question. A second is will you be estimating or maybe DPW would be estimating the cost of these mitigation measures and thirdly are any of them covered by MSBA as well. Thank you. Go ahead and talk about the intersection. I'll get the money. Well, so I would say that in general traffic volumes are heavier closer to the Fort River site. There's no denying that and certainly it's reflected in some of the results of the capacity of the Fort River. Now that being said, we are looking at mitigation alternatives at both of these sites and we're coming up with concept level designs specifically so that these can be priced out as part of the next phase of the project and Donna can probably give some more details on the potential for costs and how that's going to be addressed. Yeah. I see Mike's hands up. I'll just quickly answer this. So MSBA will not participate in these site costs if they are outside of the school of the kind of scope of work or the school property. Even if they were MSBA only reimburses costs based upon the cost of the building. So they either way it would be born 100% by the town. But what we're doing is we're obtaining including those costs as a separate line item in the preferred schematic report cost estimates that we'll be receiving at the end of the month. So that everyone so has a full understanding of that. So we're going to take a look at the overview of whether it's paid by the town or paid by the project. Mike. Yeah, I mean I'm far from an expert in learning a lot from our traffic consultants that thank you for that. But the question to walking. Wildwood historically has had a much larger population of students who walk to school. Some of that's just geographically with the neighborhoods that are located in this area. And that's the reason why I think it's a great opportunity for our community to move forward because. Because it's surrounded by pretty major roads for elementary students to walk on a little further away from residential areas. We are getting back into safe routes to school. We had had a program going for a while and got erupted in COVID. But we had an administrative leadership team meeting today on some of these topics. So I think for all sorts of reasons, know, as walkable as possible. But I think it is worth noting that there are some distinctions geographically with Park Semi D2 residential housing and distance from the need to cross major roads that play into how many walkers would have access to safely walking to school. So that was all I wanted to add. Thank you. And we know it's a lot to digest and well, well, Kathy, I'm not sure if the draft report has been circulated. Yeah, if anyone who wants to see it, the draft report, um, I, oh, it's if you go on the Amherst mass msma.gov site for the elementary school building project, it's posted in tomorrow's packet. So it's still labeled draft because some of this how might we mitigate it, but it's there in all its glory. And hot off the press, I might say it's not it's not fully edited yet. It just this was a time dependent. We we needed to get it in this week. So and you'll see all the turning movements all, all, you know, that support these tables that we've done. Mike, do you still have your hand up or was that just left over? I think it's left over. It's left over. You know, I just one thing I want to add in response to Sarah's question about costs is Chris Brestrup was on a phone call that the state did on some grant programs are opening up. And one of them is called an intersection, a clogged intersection and other is a safe walk. And so there are potentially if you can show the need, it's not like we have the money in hand, but we're paying attention to I specifically asked, could you apply if it's an exit or entrance to a school? And the answer was yes. On on that, on that, these programs, it's not that they'll pay for the whole thing, but there it doesn't necessarily mean taxpayer dollar only local taxpayer that's it's all of our taxes if it comes from the state. So yeah. Awesome. All right. And so now what we'll do is just quickly get into the options layouts that we've been talking about. And again, as everyone knows, the educational program is what drives the design. We all know that the school committee approved the program back in March for 70,500 square feet for program area with 105,750 gross square foot. This is based on new construction renovation is slightly different, but these are the numbers we're working with. We've talked about spatial relationships and adjacencies and a student center learning environment. And this really is what we put all the program together. And some of you may have seen something like this before. The purple shaded are the Gen Ed classrooms plus special ed programs that all need to be integrated with the general education program areas. We have a dotted red line that tries to sort of divide the community use. So we know what spaces would belong at the front of the building and access only to the community where the academic spaces is where we would our goal is to close those off when the school is used for community use. There are a couple of spaces that kind of cross the line. The cafeteria is going to have a stage. So in typical educational speak, it's going to be a cafeteria. I think that's an architectural work that we made up, but it's going to be an auditorium and cafeteria together. And with that, we were thinking maybe it would be nice to have the music close by. It can be utilized for the community. It can be a green kind of a green room to the stage and the stage could also be used for the music program for overflow when needed. If two music classes need to be taught at the same time. We also wanted to create a STEM or STEAM area for project based learning. So we have a STEAM room associated with the art, the music. So you're going to see a whole bunch of kind of interchanging associated relationships with all of the spaces. But what we have heard is that the gymnasium should be on the first floor and it should be accessible to the community as well as the cafeteria should as well be on the first floor and accessible to the community. So those relationships start building or shaping the building as we move forward. So we're we're looking at either a two story or three story option for right this second. We'll just focus on a new school. And our goal was to make it as cost effective as possible. But it was also most important to make sure that the spatial relationships and adjacencies work for the school. So what we've done is if you look at this diagram, we have and you'll see it's pretty similar in all of them is that we've grouped all of the community spaces together. And they would be at the front of the building. This would be the entrance to the building coming coming in on the right hand side. There would be an administrative suite here that would be secure. And there would be a double vestibule that you would need to get buzzed in to enter the building. There's an elevator right at as you enter the building across from the gym and the cafeteria. So in this scheme, we would be able to close off the academic all the purple right at the end of the cafeteria. So it's a nice, safe, secured space while it also allows community access to the front of the building. The building's organized with two grades per per floor, and they're clustered in a way for collaborative learning. Kindergarten would be in one air, you know, five classrooms plus some integrated special education programming would occur together. So there's across the hall collaboration for staff and students. And then another grade, assuming first grade would be located right next to it. So it really truly allows for vertical and horizontal collaboration among grades. We'll have very large lightwell stairwells that will bring in the natural light into the corridors, and that it also helps with the circulation. After designing schools for decades, we've learned that vertical transitions in spaces is actually more efficient than going walking vertically horizontally across in a very large corridor. So this actually provides the most time on learning as you go from floor to floor. The second floor will be organized in the same manner. We would have two grades clustered together, the media center, and then possibly a steam or a stem area with steam room, art, music, and a nice collaborative project based learning area here. And then on the third floor, it would have similar academic spaces, two grades with also some special education spaces integrated into the program. Tim. Now that we know the program of the building, which determines the size and the adjacencies, which helps determine the shape of the building, we can take that knowledge and test how the buildings fit on the site. Starting with Fort River on the left, we can compare that footprint to the buildable area of the site that we have identified and where it fits. We can compare it to the existing building footprint, which will be occupied and operational during construction of a new building. So once you take that out, your buildable area during construction actually gets a little bit less. And then we can make sure that all of the other functions that have to happen on site, outdoor learning, outdoor play, the town uses for the recreational field, including parking and getting off the field on and off the site, all fit. Also shown at the lower left hand corner of the site is the potential location for geothermal wells, which will be a part of helping the building meet the town's net zero energy goals. So now that we know more about the building, we can test to make sure that as you enter next site, we can orient the building in such a way that the entrances are where they want to be. In this scheme with this concept of building, it fits in a east west direction, which allows the classroom windows to face north and south, which is optimal for controlling glare and daylighting in the room. You know, and this is just the first step of making sure that everything fits. If you notice on the Wildwood site, you are also with this concept able to get the same orientation of the building, which is ideal for lighting in the classroom. You'll notice that we don't have quite as much room for an easily laid out geothermal field. It sort of has to snake around the existing building so that it can be operational on day one of the new building being in place. But we are, there is enough room to fit all of the parking needs to build without going over the property lines and into the hill too much and creating place base to the north of the building that will be built once the existing building has been demolished and removed. So I just I would just like to add two things. One is the geothermal well field and whether it's ground source or air source has not yet been determined. And so we'll be pricing both options for the next cost estimate. And there is a possibility and it's been a conversation that we might possibly be able to put the geothermal fields on the middle school site. There's an existing field down there that the middle school doesn't really use. So we would be able to possibly put the geothermal wells there covered up and then it could be an enhanced field for the community. All of these are still being studied. So we started looking at different ways to break down the scale of the building. A small school field was important. So we started looking at well, gee, maybe what we can do is create pods every pod per grade. And as you can see, we would have kindergarten and one pod. The community use spaces and what we call core spaces would be utilized would be laid out in the middle. And then we would have each grade have its own cluster per se. Special education would still be integrated. But what we've learned in speaking with the special education folks as well as just observations is that if you're a student in a special ed program, and the ed program is say in the first grade, Wayne, that that's a long way to go if you're a kindergartner. And so, you know, we just started looking at what are the benefits of each option or concept. And the only other thing to point out while this creates a nice intimate feel, you lose a little bit of that vertical collaboration of older students in engaging with the younger students. It's a little bit larger building. And so it does reduce a little bit of the site for outdoor learning and play. You can see as you put this option on the Fort River site, the building has to be rotated a bit to sit within the boundaries that we've identified. So there may be some slight drawbacks in terms of lighting in the classrooms, which also is slightly less energy efficient, but it's a minor less important concern than some of the other options on the site. There are also in differences in the vehicle circulation pattern, but they still work on the building. If you notice on the Wildwood site with this option, you are a little bit deeper into the hill, which is something we would have to consider in terms of the cost. But the parking, the well field, if that is the option, we work those all still work with this concept on both sites. Tim, maybe just talk a little bit about a retaining wall, what will be required to build into a hill? So if we do build into the hill, there will be a retaining wall, depending on how far it could be up to 10 feet tall. There are various ways of building the wall to make sure that the earth that is retained by the wall stays in place. And we also have to build drainage so that water coming down the hill is both diverted from the top and water that is collected in the soil behind drains in a way that doesn't undermine. Depending on the height, it could be, you know, across that we certainly is considerable. So we want to make sure that we're using the site to the best of its ability before we go to that measure. And it's also a wooded slope with mature trees, which is an asset. So we want to make sure that we're evaluating all of things. Sorry, I was saying, we are just going to kind of glance over to concept three. It's very similar to concept one, we were just trying to figure out how to bring additional natural light into the building. So then we've looked at a two story concept, you know, recognizing everyone is coming from a single story school and at Wildwood and Fort River. So again, similar to one of the concepts for a three story school is we were trying to maintain a small school field. So a two story school would, you know, make this a very long linear building. So we were trying to break down the scale and reduce the travel time for students to travel to the core spaces, as well as for the special educational programs that should also be integrated and very similar to concept two nice pods that that create these nice clusters per grade. You lose a little bit of the vertical collaboration between grades. And it is certainly a distance if you're a student in a special ed program that requires the services that might be in another pod. A two story school as well is more expensive than a three story school, just given the nature of foundations, envelope, roof, etc. Oh, I went the wrong way. I'm sorry. Sorry. With this two story version has the largest footprint. So it takes up the most site area. So here you can see the largest difference between the two sites. We've actually changed the orientation of the building with the same program on distributed on the two floors to fit on Fort River, because the three pod version does not fit within the space between the flood zone or conservancy, the flood area, the flood plain and the existing building. That is not to say that if the building, if that building configuration were going to be the most adventations for other reasons, we couldn't do what we talked about earlier in terms of getting a permit to go into the flood program. But this just shows fitting within the buildable area. And then there's also the possibility of taking the longer linear manifestation of this design and putting it on the wildwood site. But then you get back into going a little bit deeper into the hill, which for cost reasons, we probably want to avoid. But as we work through these options, we will be testing all of the moving parts on the site to make sure that they continue to fit and that we are within the boundaries that we have identified and the constraints on the site. So here's renovation addition. We just wanted to point out this is the existing building and the existing programs that occur classrooms around the perimeter and the media center and support spaces are in the core that are not naturally lit. So one concept as we've tried to study is we tried to maximize the reuse of the existing building, but also recognize and bring it's important to bring as much natural light as we possibly can into the building. So we would construct what you can see. There's a red dotted line. We would construct an addition here first and then we would come in, move the students into the addition and then we would renovate this area and create a courtyard within the existing building to bring in as much natural light as possible. The relationships, the way this is laid out, and you'll see the reasons why, because of how it sits on the site is that we have the gymnasium actually over the cafeteria, which we do in many of our schools. You're very fortunate to have these available sites with the amount of acreage. But in many instances, the gym always goes on top of the cafeteria. And in this instance, given the limitations of the existing building on the site, that this seemed to make the most sense as far as a renovation and addition is concerned. Other considerations are, you know, we are able to group grades, five classrooms per grade, plus some special education programs that will be integrated. And I think the only other things to point out is that it is a renovation addition. So it is going to be phase construction, which means there would be a longer construction time, our goal to have a new school completed by September of 26th. And this would actually take longer. And we're estimating for this to be completed in 2027. And given the complexities of a phased occupied building, we're recommending that we do a CM at risk delivery method, which does add five, at least five percent more cost to the project than if we did a hard big chapter 149. And Tim will show you what we're talking about on the site. Once he's unmuted. So yeah, there you can see the renovation addition options on both sites. They fit within the buildable area on Fort River. The major difference that you can see is that when you're partially occupying the existing building footprint, there is more space available for a better location of the geothermal well field. If we, in fact, go that route, there's also opportunity for different traffic patterns on site that separate different parking areas and car and bus circulation, which we were accomplished with the other options that just give you a bit more reading room. But there are certainly challenges with this in terms of making sure that there's area around the site for construction and stuff like that. Consideration for the building in terms of meeting the net zero goal. I'm sorry. I should have paused. I'm sorry. Sorry, Tim. I want to ask if anyone has any comments or questions as we look at the current concepts that are being considered. It is a good time to start. Sarah. OK, two questions. If maybe I misheard in the ad Renault, you said the gym would be over the cafeteria. Then what happens to the old gym space, which is still there, I think? Yes. Yes, we would be converting the old gym into the media center for two reasons. One is the new gym is actually larger, slightly larger than the existing gym. And in order, if we wanted to expand the existing gym to meet the current requirements, it would be pretty tight as it sits up against the property line number one. And it also would be much more expensive because it's the structure of the building would require a significant amount of work. The other thing that we were considering is keeping the core program spaces for communities together and so that we would be able to, in some way, close off the academic wing to community access. All right, thank you. And if I could, if you could go back to any of the three story new construction designs. If past there. So I'm looking at Wildwood and it looks like the new parking can't be built until the old building is taken down. Does that mean that once the new building is built, the children have to get off the buses in front of the existing, the current school and then walk around the old building while it's being torn down to get to the new school. It looks like the Fort River parking is not much changed. It's a little bit, but not much. So so with any of these, when you have a phase, when you have a occupied site, so yes, we would be building the new school, we would be moving the students into the new school. We would have to create temporary drop off and pick up while the existing building is demolished and the site is complete. And this is common. We do this all the time. You know, it's temporary, but we would set this up so that when the students move into the new building that there would be a drop off and pick up for them. And then we would. Yep. My dad, Donna, that often in this scenario, when you're trying to get a new school ready for September, you exit the old building in June as soon as school closes and you take advantage of that summer to get the existing building down. So while there is still construction going on, the actual building demolition is not. And that's often achievable when you're shooting toward a September occupancy of a new building. Thank you, Sarah, for asking that. All right, Tim. Just talk a little bit about how we're going to meet the town's energy goals with both or either a new building or renovation in addition. And you have to approach this problem for multiple facets. One, you have to make the building perform well, which includes, you know, making sure that the building is well insulated, well designed, well built. It helps to have a lower ratio of windows to solid wall which insulate better. We have to make sure that the systems are efficient, both the mechanical systems, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and lighting. And then we also have to make sure that once we have designed a building that performs well and uses less energy than a typical building, we have to generate energy on site to get on site. And so that's going to be in the form of photovoltaic panels on the roof and on the site. To make sure that we are meeting the targets, we do a life cycle cost analysis that determines how much energy the building will use and then in turn the cost. And then these are the assumptions that are the design at this point that we are using to, which are typical for our buildings, for buildings in the school market in Massachusetts. This shows the energy use for the four options that we are considering renovation, addition and new construction with air sourced heat pumps or ground sourced heat pumps. You'll see that the two ground sourced heat pumps perform a little bit better while they perform better than the air sourced heat pumps. There are some differences between renovation, addition and new construction. But that difference is not as pronounced as the difference between the different systems, which simply are more efficient. And if we go to the ground sourced root. So this slide shows the potential utility savings for the new building compared to the two operational elementary schools now. Fort River School heats with gas and there's also electricity for lighting and cooling. Wildwood heats with oil and then there's electricity. The new school would be fossil fuel free other than an emergency generator. So the natural gas and oil costs would essentially go away and the electricity costs would be offset as well as being more efficient would be offset by the power generated on site with the photovoltaic. So what the town is currently spending now well over two hundred thousand dollars per year for utility costs would be greatly reduced and would represent considerable operating costs going forward on the range of two hundred thousand dollars per year. And then this is a fairly detailed breakdown of the capital costs that would be required for each system. There are some large components to the system. Geothermal wells, if they're part of the system, are significant costs 2.8 million about for these options. And then if you do not have geothermal wells for the options, the building is going to use a bit more electricity because the air sourcing pumps are a little less efficient. And so therefore you would be buying more solar panels to offset the higher electricity use. So the total capital costs is the lower line of the chart on the left, which is the big difference between the options. But then the operating costs over the 50 year expected life of the building is shown at the lower level of the chart on the right. And. You know, the difference is minor. So both of these systems and all of the buildings that are on the table will produce similarly efficient well performing buildings for the Amherst for the next 50 years. I think. I just wanted to add one thing, you know, Tim, I know I've asked you but we haven't seen it yet. If we weren't building all electric, but we had to have an HVAC system that was more traditional. I looked at the earlier Wildwood project and it the HVAC was listed at about almost five million dollars. You you're going to be able to give us those numbers, right? So it's not like that first line becomes zero. We have to we have to have a heating and air conditioning. So when when this gets further along, we'll have a comparable to what I would call, you know, an oil or gas heated. So I just want to say that. And then the other thing we more recently met with ever source that that this is very conservative on what there may be potentially some other credits that we get where Tim showed some cost to running our utility systems. So that's still being explored on that instead of the there was still a nine thousand dollars. So I just wanted to make those two because ever source is getting is increasing the level of support for moving away from fossil fuels. I was just and we don't we just don't have those numbers yet. Yeah, you're absolutely correct, Kathy. I mean, the numbers show the difference between the systems that we are considering to meet your fossil free goals. If you absolutely could do a system that was burning gas or oil and it would be significantly. It's not free. There's there's no question. There's it's a lot of it's a lot of money. But that and we are conservative in our estimates just because as part of your bylaw, there is monitoring and commissioning that ensures that meet your net zero goals. So, you know, we have to make sure that we give you a design that does, in fact, the scope. So I think we'll pause here and see if anyone has any questions. But I think, Kathy, your point is very well taken that your capital investment, regardless of it being a non fossil or or we utilize fossil with would run somewhere around these numbers. So that number would have to be factored. And so really the questions what what might be the delta as it relates to achieving your bylaws, which would be your pretty much your PV investment as well as the geothermal. So your capital costs up top, Rick or Tim can chime in, but you could say that it's going to be somewhere between five point seven and six point four. And it really is the geothermal wells plus the PVs that are the added costs to achieving your net zero bylaw. That is basically accurate. It might even be a little bit higher because there are some equipment that would be required with the fossil fuel learning systems at the top line that aren't included here. So but in general, it's comparable. Yes. Well, make sure we break that out. Tony, I go for it. I don't know how to raise your hand to you there. I think it might be in the apps or something. Does Tony Tony, do you want to unmute? It's not letting you on mute. Uh-huh. Let's see if I can unmute you. Can you hear me now? Yep. Thank you. This is Tony Cunningham. Yeah, just saw recently that UMass announced that they were going carbon zero by 2032. And then this week, Smith College made a similar announcement. And it seems like both universities are focusing primarily on geothermal to get them there. They both in fact, I think the Smith College plan has geothermal in its name. Just wondering if you could comment a little on this move. It seems like if you want to really meet ambitious climate goals, geothermal, it would indicate is the way to go just to get some thoughts from you on that as far as the school goes. Thank you. Geothermal versus air source pump is more efficient. Ground, ground source. Ground source, ground source, ground source water to water heat pump is more efficient than an air source pump as your heat sink for the building. And it will end up using less electricity. It would be less of a concern if all of the electricity that you were using was generated on site with the photovoltaics that are going to be part of this investment, but not all of the electricity will come from that. Some of it will come from the grid. And for the foreseeable future, the grid comes with a carbon price tag on not all of the electricity that's coming through the grid is generated by renewable resources. So it's a two part answer. You'll be using less energy on site and the energy that you are not generating on site will be cleaner. So that is a lot of why geothermal ground source heat pumps will get you to the goal. In a more efficient, faster way. I think I think just to add to that, it is a little larger upfront cost. And if you have the space for them, you can see over the life of the building, their overall cost is somewhat neutral. But it the upfront cost is more, but the maintenance of it is less. And we don't know for sure why UMass and Smith may be, but those are some of the thoughts behind why why a lot of the industry is shifting to ground source. But we can certainly look into it a little bit more and try to understand what the thinking is behind that. Sarah. So the total life cycle costs over 50 years are remarkably similar. And as you said, we can have the choice between saving three million dollars or so upfront, but then paying paying it later as parts are replaced. But my question is about the total replace the replacements of the HVAC and the PV. Are those likely to happen like all at once? Or is this replacing some parts like every year over 20 year or or or would the taxpayer basically be hit some year with the $10,000 bill for a $10 million bill for replacing an HVAC system? Thanks. So these estimates are based on the predicted lifetime of the equipment, which varies between the systems and it varies between components of the systems that wells themselves will last as long as the building. But the heat pumps that are transferring the heat from the water in the ground to the water in the building only has a 25 year expected life. And then the air source heat pumps, the components of that have a shorter life span. So all of that is to say that this is an aggregate estimate of the replacement costs and. During the sorry. They're replaced over time, but they're replaced over time. And there will be minor replacements of parts that fail everything, something that fails. But at some point during the life of the building, there will be major work that will be required if you are taking care of your systems. Yeah, I think I think you could maybe. Say as an example, a roof, right? The roof, you know, you know, the roof will last 20, 25 years. And while you might have to patch it a little bit here, a little bit there, you're going to replace the entire roof for the most part, right at the end of its useful life. And I think you'll see the bullets down at the bottom here. Ground source, you know, there are portions of it that you would have to replace. And then and then later, the air source systems, useful life is about 15 years. And again, the first cycle replacement is about 50 percent and then 80 percent later. But P.B.s is really what we're kind of to answer your question is that we're saying the average useful life right now for P.B.s is somewhere around 25 years. So you would, in theory, be replacing it all at once. All right, if that helps, Chris Riddle. Thank you. Two things. The the the the oil based or natural gas based HVAC system system that we would do traditionally would also have bits and pieces of it that would fail over time. And it would also have to be replaced on the same kind of time frame. So it's you shouldn't feel that the the replacement of the P.B. and the replacement of the ground source or air source systems are any different in that respect from oil based or gas based. That was my one question. And the other thing, Tim, did I hear you say that you thought we would if we went to air source, we would be using more electricity than I mean, we would we would have to pay for more electricity than with with the ground source. It seems to me that we both of these have to be net zero systems with their so that there shouldn't be any difference in the out of pocket expense for every month that goes to ever source. But yeah, to clarify, if I was not clear, you are correct. And the utility bill would be the same. But the building would actually use more electricity. And therefore, the array of photovoltaics would have to be larger. And that larger investment for the air source options is reflected in the chart on the next. So that's what the difference in the price for P.B. for the options is so regardless of the system, it would be designed so that it balances to net zero. So if you see the difference in the cost for the P.B., that is the reason why. Essentially, you are spending the depending on the option, six hundred to seven hundred thousand more to make sure that you are generating the energy so that your electricity bill is the same. Thank you, Chris. OK. And just one other comment I'm learning just so everyone in the audience knows I'm just anything I say is because Dinesco people are teaching me. But when you priced out the P.V., you told us that part of that cost is the installation of what's holding the panels up. And, you know, part of these will be over the parking lot because not all of it fits on the roof. So we're not talking about all of that cost in 25 years. We're talking just about the panels, correct? You know, I'm not trying to get you to say what part is what. But some of it is we've got like when we look at UMass, it's got those canopies over the parking lots. It's the panels that not not the whole structures. It's a quite I should ask it as a question. You are correct. There are certainly elements of the system for the P.V. that will still be functional at 25 years. It is the panels themselves that have to be replaced. And then what this assumes is the current cost of the P.V. Projected in the future linearly, assuming the price would be the same. But if you look at the actual cost of P.V. over the past 25 years, it's come down dramatically, you know. And if you were even to can you that trend at half the rate this would be inaccurate. But this is another point of us being conservative because we don't know. So of all the predictions on here, that's maybe. It's it's probably overstated and and Kathy, you're correct. It was just a little hard to factor in the cost of the structure or or we remove the cost of the structure. Majority of the cost is in the panels. But thank you. So here we are at the I see Margaret Wood or OPM is on, Margaret. I'm happy to keep going or if you want to say a few words, there she is. Hey, Margaret. There we go. Sorry about that. It's having trouble on meeting. Yeah, I'm happy to say a few words about this very simplistic diagram of where we are. I think as folks know, who attended the prior meetings, we made a major submission in March, which is what's called the preliminary design program. And it's I think of it. I think the simplest way to think of it is it's kind of due diligence document that sort of provides all the background information that the MSBA is looking for as a funder and sort of sets the table for the phase that we're in now, which is called the preferred schematic, which results in a preferred schematic resort report, which at the moment we are committed to submitting that to the MSBA on June 27th, sorry, June 27th, yes, which is a hard deadline that is tied to their board approval of our preferred option. So the the content that Dinesco is presenting tonight is really sort of heading now directly towards the building committee making a decision about what the preferred option is. So obviously, Dinesco has done a huge amount of work sort of looking at different options, perhaps the biggest piece of this, which will be coming in the month of May, is the estimating. So and just to say a little bit about the way this works, the Dinesco's team has a cost estimator and I have a cost estimator and they essentially estimate in parallel these options. And then we reconcile them and present them to the building committee. So there's a lot, I would say there's an awful lot of analysis that Dinesco has presented in the last two meetings, which, you know, I think people can have their preferences about, you know, I think some different people feel differently about the content they're seeing. But I think the estimating and finding the best value project for the project, which is coming very shortly, is going to be a major milestone. So there is a community forum on June 9th, as is outlined on the slide at which the cost estimates will be presented. Donna and Dinesco team, I don't think at that meeting, there is additional content in terms of your analysis that we'll be presenting. That's really what we'll be focusing on. And perhaps a summary of the analysis that the building committee is starting to do of how to reasonably compare these options to each other. Agreed. Yeah. No, we hopefully we're, I think, done for this phase until a preferred site is selected. Our investigative work is complete at this point. Yeah. And again, then there's this gigantic document that goes into the MSBA and they have a board meeting about six weeks later. In the meantime, I expect that the design team will begin to start doing what's called schematic design of the preferred option with the goal of sending that to the MSBA with a cost towards the end of this year. And then there would be a local vote on the community share of the project in, I would say, the early spring. We haven't really set a date for it, as well as the MSBA board vote on the project. So that's to give you a sense of next step. So we are coming up to, you know, a really major decision point. But the next six, five months after the June 27 submission, we'll see a huge level of additional development of the design of the preferred option, and there will be more meetings to sort of present that material to the community. And then it starts to become real. Right now you're you're saying sketches. It's kind of hard to picture what this block, what this classroom looks like. Right. So we really are excited to move to the next level. So we are going to be busy for the month of May. And I know many of you do join the building committee meetings. They are open to the public. And we will be finalizing the cost estimates and then reporting to the community on June 9th before we make any final vote of which preferred solution is the choice. Sarah. We've seen multiple three story options and two story options and add Renault options. So which which of those will go to the cost estimating? We will have thank you. We will have three story option, two story and a renovation addition for both sites going to the cost estimators. The costs are for the most part at this level, cost per square foot for the building. It's the site cost that might slightly be modified given the geometry and what needs to be done to accommodate them. So we know that the scrufflers of the building truly shouldn't exceed, you know, for a new school, one thousand one hundred and five thousand seven fifty and the renovation can be slightly more than that. But we'll have three cost options per site. Yes, right on for those those three designs on those two sites, the six different designs. Well, will there be three dimensional imagery of all all six of those designs? Will we see the shape of these buildings? I'm not not not at this level. We haven't developed there are we haven't even selected which I guess concept of layout is that we were that we've presented, right? We have three different concepts. So at this point, we weren't intending to provide any three dimensional drawings. There's we don't have enough direction, I think, at this point. But there will be just to be clear. Are there the much of what the estimators are using to estimate is what's called a basis of design narrative that describes what is anticipated for building envelope and structure and building system. So there's real. And I think that's really important because we want the assumptions, those assumptions to be comparable between each option. So although there's nothing drawn, you know, in the sense of, you know, being able to select the option based on well, I like the way that one looks. That's not the intent of this part of the process. The intent of this part of this process to find the best kind of combined fit what I call the best value option that meets the educational program and is the best budget option for the community. And if I could add the base, the basis of design, you've seen a portion of that when Tim was talking about the net zero assumptions where the envelope is twenty three percent windows, then we will go on to say of the remaining seventy seven percent assume that X percent is brick, wide percent may be some other architectural accent. And these will get written into the basis of a design along with floor to floor heights so that volumes are established. And so while it's a square foot price, it's based on a bunch of elements that influence cost. Sorry, Kathy, I was just going to say, you know, and my understanding to respond to Chris is that once we've picked a site and whether we're building newer at Renault, that's when we're going to start to see as you design it three dimensional designs. What is what does the cafeteria look like? You know, is what's the color of the walls? Where are the windows? You know, so we're going to get getting starting to look at something that looks more like a building. Am I correct? Yeah. So right now what we're doing is we're presenting many different concepts and many different on both sides. Right. The next phase will be presenting many options or studies, but for one solution. And so that that is when, you know, we'll have the time to three dimensionally show everyone what one option looks like over another option and what one material might look like over another option. Yeah. Sarah, will the cost estimate estimate estimates also include the various site costs like raising the whole site at Fort River or dealing. So it's not just the building, the square footage. No, no, it's it right. It will be all of the site features that are necessary required to make each concept viable, such as the retaining walls over at Wildwood or raising the building or, you know, putting the additional drainage system at Fort River. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. So one thing I might just add for those who are on the line. But if you know, people who haven't been, we're going to be posting the recording of this on this website and the charts. I think there were a couple of changes in the chart since we posted them this morning, Donna, but we will post the charts both on the town website and also on this on our Emmer school dot projects. So if you want to go back and look at the charts, if there are questions that occur to people, please, you can email Kathy and it's my last name with a C and then emmers at emmers math dot gov. I'm the chair of the building committee and I try to get any comments or questions if it's just a direct question, just goes to the Dinesco team. If it's observations, comments, we're we're we're trying to share them with the committee. We are really welcome to hearing more because this was a lot of information in one sitting. And so I think, yeah, yeah, thank you, everyone. I we truly we appreciate everyone's input. I I'm hoping that as we receive the comments that we respond in our presentations that we've heard we've addressed. And if we've not been able to address it, it's just because it might be not the right time and might be a little premature in the process to be able to respond to some of your questions. But I truly want to thank is there several individuals that have shared and provided information to us that have been very helpful in our process. So I really want to thank everyone for your investment in this project. And I guess we'll see you on the 9th of June, if not before. Have a great evening, everyone. Thank you.