 Kathy, I don't see anyone else joining. Maybe it's okay to we'll keep an eye on this and we can bring up the presentation. That sounds great Donna. So as we open up Tim Cooper is going to take up my put up my slides. Donna said earlier we all we welcome you we're. We're delighted that you've joined us tonight for the forum. And as chair of the elementary school building committee, I want to welcome everybody to the forum. We're at a, I need the first slide Tim yeah we're at a key juncture. The next steps toward building a new elementary school as we will describe this evening, we have the opportunity to build for the future for our children for our community and for our climate. My role tonight is to provide to outline the agenda, introduce Donna Dinesco will speak on behalf of Dinesco design the school architects, and I believe Tim Cooper also has a speaking role and Margaret would from answer. He's project manager who helps us all manage and oversee the project including deal details involved with securing a facility grant from the Massachusetts school building authority. After my brief overview of the project and its status Donna will present the site and building design highlighting key elements that will enable flexibility and a highly energy efficient sustainable building with robust opportunities for outdoor learning and play, including community fields. She'll also summarize the most recent cost estimates. Margaret will follow with an expanded view of costs, including estimates of the facility grant from MSBA, the projected timeline. Next slide please. The design of enrollment in our elementary schools, we in Amherst can combine two schools that are operating well below capacity in buildings that have little to no insulation age and efficient heating and cooling systems that were built in an era where air circulation use of fossil fuels and energy costs were as Donna will discuss the education needs of the students and teachers inform the design with a focus on student centered learning with an ability to work in small groups. Throughout the building teachers and students will benefit from diet daylight in a site with robust outdoor learning spaces and spaces for teaching about the environment and natural resources the Fort River site is truly remarkable for what it is. This will be our town's first net zero building. The design will meet the town's net zero bylaw in a well insulated all electric building with PV arrays to offset utility costs. We estimate that we will save at least $250,000 a year and energy costs alone, consolidating to one school will also save on other operating costs. The selection of Fort River site enables us to build a new building while the current school stays open with less disruption at a time when even the cost of bricks and glass or escalating the building committee working hardwood designers have focused on selecting durable materials yet lower cost materials and a cost efficient three story building. We expect to receive a facility grant from MSBA with official notice in April, but the cost of the school given other needs of the town will require a debt exclusion vote to help pay for the town share. This is scheduled for May 2. Today's forum and yesterday's and future meetings are part of a community outreach effort. We want to bring our vision and what you can see of the school to the public to the community with ample opportunities to have input as we get from this high level down to actually putting this pool in place with a big hope that is going to open in September 2026. I'm turning it over to Donna now who will show you where we are at this point Donna. Thank you and good evening everyone it is really an important step and milestone where we are right now with the project. And we're just going to begin with talking about the educational program. And this has been the educational program has driven the design and it remains at the forefront of every decision we make. So, the educational program was reviewed and approved almost a year ago with the school committee, and we have maintained and stayed true to the overall square footage of the school. The total program area is 70,500 and the gross square footage is 105,750 square feet. So, although the program hasn't changed the areas and the program needs, we've spent almost the last year working with staff to develop the spatial relationships and adjacencies. What spaces should be next to each other to maximize time on learning and make sure that the students have the support they need throughout the day. So this is the Fort River site and you'll see at the top of the north part of the site the dashed in existing building. We've been able to develop the new school south of the existing school or southern part of the site, so that the news, the existing school can remain in operation and utilize the fields behind the school for school activities while the construction of the new school is built there'll be a fence right below the existing building, and we'll be able to actually provide all of the attributes required for the new school as it relates to play and outdoor learning during this phase. Once the new school is built. It's the summer of 2026 will move the students into the new school demolish the existing building ideally over the summer while the students are not there, and then we'll complete the site. So this site has really afforded the maximum opportunities without minimal disruption to the staff and students. The next slide. I just want to briefly talk about the circulation and how the site will function, the southern entrance that's located. There's going to be my there you go. The southern entrance with the bus drop off loop will be independent of the northern loop that southern drop off bus loop will accommodate 12 buses, and we've accommodated a pull off area for the vans for the students that will have additional time to arrive and depart the school. The northern entrance is, as you can see in red will be for staff parking as well as for parent drop off and pick up. We've accommodated ample space to allow for at least 60 cars to the front of the building, and then we've even allowed for additional or plan for additional queuing for parents. We've accommodated 170 parking spaces which is required to support all of the students in the school, and you'll see that we've identified accessible parking spaces in front of the school but we also felt it was important to locate them by the community fields for folks that are coming to utilize the beautiful fields. We'll go into the areas around the school, which is the next slide. Thank you. You'll see that we have really spent a lot of time developing the site to embrace the site as it is to provide outdoor learning and play so the students can use this area year round, starting at the cafeteria. This is an area for outdoor learning and it really become a really popular feature since COVID so we want to embrace that we have the two circles were on either side of the play area which will be the play equipment we anticipate one area for the younger students, and a larger circle would be for the older students, and then a play area in between that can also be utilized year round, all of the area around the building is hard scape as we would call it that will be able to be applied and used by the students year round, and we're really excited you'll see lots of squiggles and lines and we'll be spending the next year or so developing what's important to the students and hopefully we can engage the students and what kinds of games and activities and ideas they may have on this hard skate. We have a couple of half court basketball courts, as well as two full size basketball courts. We also are so impressed with the outdoor learning that already exists at the Fort River school, and we want to embrace and actually enhance it. We have several areas for outdoor learning will start at the southern part of the site where most of the sun, this will be for gardens and we also have a cultivation area and pollinator garden that will also be associated with that with shade structures so that the students can use this space year round. We are also incorporating as part of the stormwater management, what we consider rain gardens, and with that we're also introducing opportunities for outdoor learning within those areas. We also want to take advantage of the natural wooded area of the site. And in here we'll use logs and other natural features so that this can be an area for outdoor learning as well. And then we'll enter into the building. So this is the first floor plan. The main entrance will be on the western part of the left side of the building. There'll be a vestibule where the main office will be able to oversee and welcome visitors through a secured locked front door. The visitors will check in once they're inside the vestibule, once credentials are checked, and the visitors are welcomed into the building. The main office staff will then allow them into the building and they can be escorted to their proper location. We'll organize the building into two separate wings per se. We have the community wing up front, which has the cafeteria, that's a gym, a cafeteria with a stage that will be used for community events as well as all school assemblies and activities. And then the gymnasium, which is directly across the hall from it. We have an elevator just slightly further down the hallway. From there, all the purple spaces, what you'll see are the academic spaces, and we'll be able to close off the academic wing from the community wing so that the community can embrace and utilize the school while making sure that the academic wing is safely secured. We've organized the academic wing so that their five classrooms per grade can be co located, and we have project areas outside of the classrooms that will allow for a small group instruction, project based learning and individualized instruction. And Tim will be walking you through the fun part, but just you'll be able to visualize this as a further down the presentation. Each floor will have two grades the first floor is kindergarten and first grade again five classrooms per grade. And we've located the special education spaces so that these students can remain with their peers, as well as the support spaces will be easily accessible for all students. On the second floor. Now what we're calling a STEM based area which is above the community spaces. We have the media center, the art room, and an STE or science technology and engineering room. And we're really excited about developing the quarter area so that we can kind of spill out of those spaces and really make this an interactive project based learning area. So we're going to go over to the east. Again, you'll see all of the purple. We have two grades on the second floor. We're anticipating them to be the second and third grades. But what we'd like to mention is that all the classrooms will be the same size and be very flexible as your needs change. Again, the special education spaces are incorporated into the general ad so that these students again can be with their peers. As we go to the third floor you'll see that we start getting smaller and smaller with program which is great. It really helps break down the scale of the three story building. The third floor again is primarily academic. The fourth and fifth graders will be on the fifth on the third floor and we like to say as they rise in stature in their tenure at the school they'll also be able to be advanced to the third floor we think that will be pretty special for them. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Tim, and he'll be able to walk you through the site in the building. So take a walk around the outside of the building now, and then we'll get inside starting at the front door in the west where the parents will drop off. And then we're going to move around to the playground areas and outdoor areas outside of the cafeteria directly north of the building. You can see a light filled lobby at the entrance with administration directly to the right to control access and greet people as they come in. As we go around through the playground to the north you can see the cafeteria and the media center with expanses of glass to enjoy the view of the site to the north. Because it's north facing there is not glare. So you'll see that the sod is based on masonry material which is cost effective, but still has a lot of color available to express the design that is appropriate for this elementary school. As we circle around we can see where the playground will be where the basketball courts will be to the west of the building. The main areas are the rain garden features that Donna mentioned that will serve as outdoor learning areas in addition to keeping the site try. And as we circle around to the south, you can see the outdoor learning planter beds, pollinator gardens and other aspects of the site that we will weave into the curriculum on the south side of the building on the windows into the classrooms which are quite large to let you know, which has been a driver of the design all along you can see sunshades which will control glare. And then as we move to the west you can see the entrance that students that arrived by bus can go through. There are stairs with lots of glass to allow light into the building. And the gymnasium as we come up on the left with large walls which is an opportunity for our murals which you have discussed as being important to the culture and community of Amherst. There's a TV on the roof and also as you circle around the building in the parking lot that will contribute to the town's net zero goals and have the school be self sufficient energy wise. Moving into the lobby now through the secure vessel, you can see the main office directly as you enter the door. There are areas for art and display. There's a lot of light filled space that you will circulate through and get into the community aspects of the building and directly ahead is a light filled stair that will bring you to the academic upper floors. The gym is to your right here, it will be light filled but light will be controlled. And then as we circle around to the north, you can see through the cafeteria to the site that you were lucky to have for this building. Also in the main public area of the building is the music room, which will is available and next to the stage for performance. We're now going to move upstairs into one of the project areas that are outside the cluster of classrooms there is storage for students and storage for teachers above the lockers. This is where you have space for pull out learning and project based learning. You can notice the doors to the classrooms have large side lights to let light through the classrooms into the project areas there is also transoms above storage that will allow light above that into the project areas. So, as you walk through the building you have a connection to the outdoors both through daylight and in certain areas seeing all the way out. Here we are in a classroom looking south so you can see the sun control on the outside. And there are two sinks in every classroom and storage for all of the needs of the teachers and students. And here you can see the connection from each of those classrooms to the project areas that are outside three classrooms on either side of the quarter that goes between the two project areas. To leave the project area we're going to go into the media center, which is in the STEM suite. There is obviously space for books, but in addition to that there is teaching technology and space for full classroom education. As we circle around, you can also see that there is a storytelling area for small groups and the other systems that are needed for the library to run the circulation desk the room for the librarian to work. And notice all the glass that lets the light that comes into the library get into the corridor. And then to review some of the sustainable features of the building in addition to just being a great home for learning and for the kids. That's an all electric building as Kathy mentioned we're using ground source heat pumps, which is one of the most efficient ways to heat and cool the building. There will be affordable take panels on both the roof and on canopies in the parking lot to get to that net zero goal. And then the envelope of the building itself will be high performance to make sure that we will have to use as litter energy as possible to keep it heated and cool. There will also be electric vehicle charging stations, and the design is replete with items that will add to the comfort including inter air quality thermal comfort. And then, not just when the building has been built during the construction we keep an eye on minimizing landfill waste so there are many aspects to the energy conservation and use of the building that will contribute to the lead gold stats that we are tracking. So, as you'll see that the construction cost has increased from where we were at PSR which was just a six short months ago. And we worked really hard the committee I really must commend making decisions to remove some items without impacting the program, or the goals for the project so these what we call value engineering items that we've removed or or made alterations to the design have been incorporated and we're confident that it will not impact the look feel and the goals for the project. I'm going to turn it over to Margaret and Brian if you could unmute Margaret, please. Hello, can everybody hear me. Okay, well, to follow along the presentation by Dennis go, I'm going to talk about as is my role, the overall project cost, and, you know, I think it's folks know this project is seeking. To participate funding from the MSBA. So this is a way of providing Tim and Donna have sort of shown us, you know, shown the everybody who's assembled how we got to this number which is the hard construction costs, which is what we'll be carrying. So, you know, I want to say about all of these numbers is, you know, a little bit like the design looks like it's complete. It's really actually far come far from complete it said an early level. These numbers are the same, they're very specific, because that's the nature of the process is to sort of provide specific numbers but I'd like people as they're looking at these to understand that they're still. We still estimates we don't these aren't big numbers. So they're all likely to change a little bit so I'm going to as I talk about this I'm going to round a little bit so here we are a little over $81 million in construction, which includes this, you know, really great recent effort by the building committee to seek cost savings. And this piece of the slide talks about the soft costs so soft costs are the things the parts of the project that are not the building they're not, they're called soft because they're not hard construction costs. And one big chunk of that is the fees which is here is rolled up it's the architects fees the opm fees, all the many sub consultants who work on the project, and other fees for construction testing, moving, etc. The second big category is budget for furnishings equipment and technology. This is all of these numbers are are partially subsidized by the MSBA. In this case, we have an initial budget of 1850 per student for furnishings and 1654 technology. You know, as you can imagine, the new furniture for those of you who've been in newer elementary elementary schools and high schools. The furniture in these buildings makes a huge difference because it's quite different from the furniture we had a building's at least when I went to school so that's a bucket that we're going to be talking to the building committee this coming week. And then there are also contingencies and then the project in several different places so there's a there are contingencies within the construction cost to protect against escalation and, you know, change some design and design, but outside of the construction budget there are also what's called a hard construction contingency which is for you know things that come up in the field unexpected conditions. That needs to be spent for something that was not anticipated in building design and then there's also a smaller number for soft cost which is additional fees if needed. So these are percentages of construction for express as percentages construction and recommended by me with the input from others. So all of that rolls up to a total project budget of $98 million again speaking to the rounding number. The MSBA has a kind of thoughtful, detailed way of arriving at a facilities grant, and what I have done for the building committee is do an estimate based on their calculation so this is my number, not the MSBA number but you know we I believe it to be pretty good. So, again, rounding it rounding let's call this 42 seven. And the project has benefited from the fact that the MSBA did recently bump up the amount of reimbursement they were providing. It was a little bit higher than it was even a month ago which has been great. So that means that the town's share of that project budget. Let's call it 52 three million. And then, as done and Tim did on the previous slide. This, there is a half percent for art that's carried in the overall budget of 250,000 so now we're a little over 55 five is the town's share. So, next slide. One of the things one of the immediate next steps that Kathy is a finance committee are working on with the town leadership is looking at how then to apply other funding that we know we will get and some that we know we will get but can't yet that can reduce the overall cost of the town. And that includes, you know, pretty big number of 1.6 million, which is rebates that the project is getting forever source because of its very excellent energy performance. Then there is also some community preservation money, which is on the table pending council approval. And the biggest question mark is federal tax credits which you may have heard about what you're coming for photovoltaics but we don't actually yet know the details of those. So, more to be figured out on that and maybe other line items will come into this but that's kind of where it stands today. So, the next slide is a milestone schedule, which I'll just talk through quickly. The biggest things to note here are, you know, obviously we're here at the top with the tonight's community forum. We have several different meetings scheduled for a town council and finance committee kind of going back and forth discussing and voting language for what is will be called a debt exclusion. That's the terminology for this kind of a vote. The big milestone for the consultant team as well as the building committee is March 2, where we submit this big package all of these materials that you're seeing kind of the tip of the iceberg have kind of go into the MSBA and March 2. And they will vote on the funding agreement on April 26. In the meantime, the town council will vote on the debt authorization on April 3, and then the voters vote, the whole sort of community will vote on May 2 on the debt exclusion. So that's the overview but then following that there is a detailed period designed to produce the big documents and then construction, and we are anticipating the school be open for the fall of 2026. So, that concludes our presentation, and we really look forward to any comments anyone has any feedback. We'd love to hear from you. If you want to just raise your hand and then we can unmute and buy you to speak. I hear Michael. I don't know if I can. I'm unmuted now. There you go. Thanks for the presentation. I know you guys gonna have a lot of work ahead of you. Since this is just a schematic phase. So I have a couple of comments and a couple of questions. I mean, I mean, I really like the idea that there's lots of light going into these classrooms. That's something that's missing from many of Amherst schools the middle school and certainly fall River and and Wildwood. So I really like the light. One of the things that I suggest that I have is that I don't like windowless spaces at all. And in fact, I'd like to sentence architects to spend their entire days in a windowless space to see what it's like and I, as I've gotten older I've gotten claustrophobic so I don't have all windowless rooms but I think the work areas outside the classrooms. I think you're in the going in the right direction you you and I understand why they're there. I think one thing you might consider is lowering the clear story windows that separate that area from the classroom so that you get even more light because let's face it these these people that are going to be working here aren't very so what you want is some visual separation but you don't really need to keep the windows up so high so that'd be one suggestion just to to give more connection to the outside which I think is is really healthy. The other thing is the building. I'm glad to see but it's masonry. The architect should understand and I assume they understand this because they've looked at the other schools. Amherst is terrible, shameful at maintaining its buildings. So whatever you can do to make every surface durable beyond belief would be a good idea. And I have in along those lines of the exterior the rain gardens and any kind of shrubbery. Stop and think about that very seriously with little kids running around and running through it, and who's going to maintain those those rain gardens and shrubs on that space. Again, if you look around the high school, the landscaping there is all compacted and in rough condition and that that goes. Well there really isn't any landscaping around very little around Wildwood before river so I would give that some thought and think about how these kids are going to use it for the gardening area is great. I think that's structured and that's something that I think we'll get some really good use students that you mask them over and help out. And because of the walls and artwork. I think one of the things that that I really looked at a lot of schools is how friendly is the school to a young kid. And I think color is not enough I think whatever goes up on these walls has to be very thoughtful and carefully laid out and I think you're right I think these spaces could be covered with some nice murals or some artwork. But be careful with that I really think some of these large walls. Photo murals of some sort are really effective and can be changed relatively inexpensively. Just two other things. Before I go to the question. See pack I'm assuming see pack would fund some of the recreational aspects outside the building, which I think is a very legitimate purpose for that and that's what I would go for because they. It's very limited in what you can fund, but that would be a good use for it on on on your exterior spaces. And the other thing is is the definition of that zero I know you're going for lead gold which is great. Is there really going to be a net zero building. Is that achievable, I think possibly if you use some of the site for photovoltaic, putting photovoltaics on the roof is probably not enough you don't have a big enough footprint here. So my question is, is this going to be net zero, how close to net zero is that how does that mesh with the bylaw that meeting had passed years ago which I thought was too extreme by the way. It's difficult that is to achieve that zero. And, you know, I, I also just want to say, I, you know, I think you guys are going in the right direction this is a tough thing to do and I do understand totally, because I'm in the design profession I know exactly what the next step is going to be and how difficult it will be to move this through design development and then working growing stage is a lot of work. I think people on the committee will understand that better when you come in and plop down a huge set of drawings in front of them. So just to recap, my only concern is the connection of the workspaces to the to the classrooms making more light available and then thinking about areas that don't have access to exterior light how you're going to treat that so that you can make those feel non positive over and that's that's it. Thanks for letting me speak this long. Thank you. Thank you very much and and first, Tim, maybe you can go to the site plan that that might be a great place to start. Pick one anyone that's great. So, Michael first thank you for obviously picking up on interior spaces and, and recognizing our goals of making every space having some form of light, and that will be our goal will continue it you have many advocates in town, really bringing home the need for natural daylight and views so so you're in very good company in the town of Amherst and we'll continue to strive for that. As far as the durability, we also hear you, and we recognize how important that is so we focus our firm focuses on educational facilities. And we understand how important it is to provide durable and material that will last for 50 plus years, and we've spent a lot of time with the facilities folks to really ensure that the decisions on choices and materials will meet their needs and keep the costs down for maintenance because we all understand how challenging that can be. The murals on the walls which is is wonderful and we will start those conversations as well. We don't plan on just painting the walls we really want to bring the students art and murals into the building. The site as it relates to net zero, it will be a net zero site, so we will have PV's on the roof, but also in the parking lot. So we've been working with several folks to make sure that they understand what our EU I is our energy use indexes for the for the site, or for the building are right now we're tracking below 25. And we can supplement the will have enough PV on site to to provide for the energy that the building is using so we're not buying racks we're not we're not doing it in the true sense of the bylaw and everything else that this will be self sustain. So I hope I hope that answers your question. Yeah, that's a really good explanation and I just want to tell everybody on the committee and others how difficult it is even to achieve lead gold. It's, it's not a walk in the park. It's, it's, it's, it's a lot of it's a lot of work. So thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. I have one question that chap but go ahead Bonnie. Oh, you need, we need to unmute you. One more time. Thank you for the presentation. It's really great to see these plans progressing. I had kids at Fort River and this will be an amazing, amazing change to what they went to as for their schooling. I have just a couple of questions, not necessarily about the building design but one is you mentioned that the would be demolition of the existing building at the successful conclusion of the building project. Are those costs separate or are those costs included in the construction cost. The other question is about the Wildwood. I know this isn't your purview but will Wildwood continue to be open for some new use or is that also slated for demolition. So actually I also wanted to state the demolition of the Fort River school is included in the project. And so are all of the pvs and and everything as for the future of Wildwood I'm going to let Kathy speak to that. So the future of Wildwood is a question mark right now, you know that the it's a two step process, assuming this school moves forward will have a vacant school and it's currently owned by. It's an education property so it would have to be released to the town. We just started talking about. The property like this comes online when I say we it's the town. I'm on the finance committee we just started talking about reactivating a disposition so there are multiple possible of ways to go and I want to point out that the building itself is currently heated by oil, and it has no insulation in it. It has asbestos it has had. So, the types of things we might think of doing about it we're going to have to have multiple options so that doesn't need to be decided now. And I think we'll, we'll start a process that will at least start to think about what are the choices. And, and then it will be open up to a much bigger public conversation but fortunately for denisco they don't have to figure that piece out. Okay, so I know superintendent Morris is his hands up but a couple of questions that have come in relating to the accessibility of the spaces that will meet the needs of all the students. So, the answer is yes, every every space inside and out will be fully accessible to to all students. And I don't know if it's easier to go the next slide maybe a more detailed slide. Do you want to talk through this. On you. The site with starting from the accessible parking moving toward the building there's an accessible route from each of the parking lots across the drop off routes where necessary there are ramps and flush curves. And the slopes and all of the surrounding site are within MAV and ADA tolerances. And there's a straight level entrance to each door around the building where there's the largest grade range at the side of the building there is a ramp outside the door so all of the entrances are accessible. When you get into the building. There's an elevator to get you from floor and other than the platform in the cafeteria. And one space on the second floor which we'll get to the entire floor is level and all accessibility clearances at doorways toilet rooms are accounted for and the floor is flat. And then moving to the second floor. The only space where the floors and completely level is the media center which is a couple steps up from the rest of the second floor to allow the ceiling height that you require for performances in the cafeteria. But there is a ramp to the media center so the entire building is completely accessible. So you can get into the building. And I think that's where you have to be. And it's just kind of a far cry from what is in the existing Wildwood and Fort Rivers school. Mike, did you want to jump in with anything. You should be unmuted. You can't you're muted. All right. Okay, thank you. just saying that as our population of the schools has declined with school, 20, about a quarter fewer school-age children than 20 years ago in the town, really we are trying to right size the amount of space that we're using. This is part of this proposal. We want to be good stewards of the land that we've been afforded by the town, the elementary level. We used to use East Street School. That's been given back to the town. I know the town's been working really hard on use for East Street School. And this is another opportunity, I think, for the town to have another parcel of land. And I think there will be no shortage of ideas for Kathy and her colleagues in the town council to weigh, but from the school's perspective, we are trying to have what we believe is the right size of space, a right amount of space, both internal and external, inside and outside space for the number of students we have. And I think this is a fortuitous situation for the town, perhaps not so much for the counselors who have to weigh many, many ideas, but to have another parcel of land and that there may be a lot of interest in the community. And I think that'll be a challenging conversation, but in a positive way. It's an opportunity for the town to think through what it may want to do for a parcel of land that's very well located and close to the town center. So I'm excited to observe Kathy and her colleagues weigh that out in a couple of years from now, but from the school's perspective, we would be certainly not claiming rights and be happy to share that with the town. I don't see if anyone else has any hands. I think a couple of people might have joined a little late and someone was asking if this is going to be funded, a fully funded project, or will the taxpayers be contributing to it? So, Margaret, maybe just another recap as someone was asking for that. Tim, maybe I'm gonna go to one of the... Oh, unmute you. We're linear, I can, Donna. I mean, just so people know, we are currently scheduling unless we change this debt exclusion vote by the taxpayers. And what that means is that the taxpayers would pay a substantial share of what you've seen as the town share. And what Margaret said is what we're trying to decide is how much needs to go out to the taxpayers and how much through a combination of there's some credits on the table, the ever source money is real money, by the way. Because we went to ground stores, heat pumps, they will pay that the day the building is finished and open. I mean, they're giving it as a rebate because of our target of this very energy-efficient building. So that money market flashed by it. But when we said 1.6 million, the last 200,000 comes if we achieve our target, but the first 1.4 million is because of the way we're the HVAC system for the building. So we've done a lot of work in thinking through where are there opportunities, not just at the beginning, but over time, that we get a benefit of a much more energy-efficient school. But when Mike said downsizing, we expect to save a substantial amount of operating costs beyond just utility because the buildings right now are underused. So, Lynn, I don't know what you wanna add to that, but I don't want anyone to think that the town, this is too big a cost for the town to have enough reserves that we can do it from all internal money. We've got some other large projects coming online. Lynn, you're muted. Brian, can you make sure? No, I didn't. Kathy, thank you. And all of you, thank you for this outstanding work. It is a large price. And the town, as people know, has other capital projects that in addition to other ongoing capital expenses like roads and sidewalks that we need to attend to as well. So this will be a debt exclusion. There will be a vote at the estimated date right now is May 2nd. And at our council meeting on the 6th of February, thank you, we will actually start talking about the language. We'll start talking about the dates, voting sites, whether we'll do early voting, whether we'll do mail-in ballots, et cetera. So because those things are not automatic with local questions like this, they're only automatic with state level. But again, thanks to everybody who has worked so hard to get us to this point. Thank you. Thank you, Lynn. Couple of other questions while we're on budget, why don't we start there? The question was in our design teams experience, so that would be Dinesco and Ansar, Margaret, what's the likelihood of the project like this going into or over the contingency funds, meaning how likely is the project to be well over budget? Why don't we go to the total project budget slide with the contingencies, thank you. We'll start off and say that the design team Dinesco, we've been working in the public construction market in Massachusetts since our inception. We are well aware of the requirements that are or the need to put the construction documents together in such a way that document everything. And I think Michael made a comment, wait, wait till you see the set of documents, how thorough and detailed we need to be in order to make sure that the contractors who are bidding the project properly price it and understand the scope of work. We are very confident with our documents and the level of detail and completeness of them. However, the contingency that's up under the hard construction contingency of 5% is for unforeseen conditions. And a lot of the time that is due to unforeseen site conditions that we cannot appropriately anticipate, especially if they're under the building per se, like we can't go digging and exploring under the current school building right now. But we have never been in a situation where we've exceeded the construction contingency. Margaret, do you wanna chime in? If there's anything else you wanna add? Well, yeah, I just wanna refer back to the comment I made earlier, which is there's a whole separate slide you could make that shows the multiple contingencies. And but I think the person's question is saying, you know, how, is there enough? So what I will say is that we made when we did the last version of this. So this was, you know, a six months ago when we were looking at options and hearing options, we made, you know, conservative assumptions about the market. And we found that when we came to do this schematic design estimate, what had really changed that was sort of came out of, you know, doing further design development was a better understanding of the site costs. So what we also did, however, at that point was we looked again at the market and we bumped up the escalation percentage as a part of this cost. So that whole conversation, the sort of additional costs for the site, additional costs for escalation came out of detailed design, the first level of detailed design, that process repeats throughout the project. So we'll stop again in several months and look again, we'll stop again. So, which is a very long-winded way of saying, I'm very confident at this point, but I'm confident because it's an iterative process that allows you to stop and look again and if need be make changes to sort of the budget in combination with very conservative assumptions about based on what we know about the market right now. So I hope that gives, it's a very difficult thing, I think to give confidence in this crazy market, but it does seem like it's settling a little bit and we are being very conservative about what we're putting in here for assumptions to protect the community. There was one other question, Nancy, so your hand up, let me just respond to this. There was a question about our design process and the inclusion of staff and administration. And we could say that we have had visioning meetings with the staff. We've also had many meetings to ensure that we are incorporating the features in their spaces and the adjacencies required to provide the services required for the students over the past year. And we'll continue to do that, but we have absolutely reached out to everyone that has a space in the building to seek input as we started this process. And Mike, I guess it's only been the last couple of months that we actually went back and double checked with everyone. I don't know if there's anything else you wanna add to that. Can you mute it again, Brian? Just make Mike a co-host would be great. You are now a co-host, Mike. Okay, thank you. So yeah, I think I wanna thank the design team because they've done, I think they've gone above and beyond. There was multiple meetings that they did right after the workday. So it had the greatest level of access for staff. And I think they've also done a tremendous amount of outreach for and Kathy, you've been there for some of these for specific staff. So we think about our specialized special education programs that require a higher level of unique design principles based on the profile of students they have. We've had multiple meetings in person and remote with staff in that area. We did an in-person meeting with the Cominante staff, our dual language program to see what needs to emerge from that. We had multiple meetings with specialists, art music, PE, right? There was kind of folks that think about that. So they've really run the gamut from general meetings to much more kind of job-belike and specific meetings with staff whose roles are a bit more unique. When you're thinking about a gym, right? You wanna meet with the gym teacher, right? It's, you don't necessarily wanna meet with the generalist and that's been really important. That's happened. So I really do thank them. We also have the assistant principal, Wildwood and the interim principal at Fort River on the building committee. So their input has been hugely valuable as well. But do appreciate all the work. And I think the last thing I'll say is that there were a number of surveys that were done or opportunities for feedback that were sent out for staff who couldn't make some of the meetings that we had for a variety of reasons. So we tried to hit all bases and in-person, remote as well as electronic feedback that could be offered via kind of electronic tool. So I really wanna thank the design team. And I think from the beginning they've really valued the voice of educators and been seeking the voices for educators throughout. So I just wanna share my appreciation for that as an educator. Thanks, you said that much better than me. I guess it's late for me. Nancy. You have to unmute me. There we go. Thank you for this presentation. I think it's very thorough. It certainly answered a lot of my questions. It looks like a really well-designed building. And I'm especially, I was especially interested in what you're doing about energy costs and net zero. And it clearly is paying a lot of attention to that. So lots of thanks to both the architects and the school building committee for everything that's going on. A very simple question. I'm just kind of not paying attention probably to what's going on at the moment regarding this. But this is clearly assuming that the sixth graders are moving to the middle school. I could, Mike or somebody remind me of where we are with that process. Sure. So that's a very much in process. So that's the perfect word for it. So the original thinking on the part of myself in the school committee was that sixth graders were going to move actually next fall, the fall of 23 to the middle school, given the space crunch, even though we do have a reduced enrollment, we made structural changes to Wildwood and Fort River when COVID occurred so that to improve our ventilation. Actually just two nights ago, I made a recommendation to the Amherst School Committee to pause that and to move the sixth graders in the, when the building project occurs in the fall of 26, we feel like we can make it through particularly Fort River will be tight on space, but we think we have maps and we've mapped out how we can make that work. So they're slated to take that up and potentially vote on that on February 16th, but the good news is we've done a tremendous amount of work on the design, the instructional design where sixth grade students would be in the middle school building and whether that occurs this fall or the fall of 26, we've got that mapped out. So really want to thank, there was last summer there was a group of 14 or so educators from the elementary and middle school who worked on developing a plan. It was an iterative process again where we gathered more and more feedback from the community. And I think in the next couple of weeks we'll be clear on the timeline of that. I think we're finalizing a date for a forum sort of like this to gather more feedback from the community on what timeline that would be probably in the next two weeks. But we do have an articulated plan written down with FAQs, things like that. But we may be able to make it to 2026 and do kind of the changes full-soup all at once, which may be in the best interest of kids. So that's where we are with that process but thanks to all the educators who spent a week of their summer drafting that and then lots of people who have contributed throughout. Sorry, I muted and I'm talking here. Kathy, did you have something you wanted to add? Why don't you take Alice's comment first? I was just gonna build on a couple of the others. So mine will be disjointed. Alice, while I mute here, there you go. Yes, I'm thinking back to the earlier discussions about the difference between Fort River and Wildwood and so much about the flooding. And I don't know where that comes in in terms of the costs of the whole project. Is that part of the project, the part of the cost now or some taking care of some other way? Because of the low, whatever it is, that's the land being so low. Yeah, thank you. So yes, as part of the project, we are incorporating, we're raising the elevation to bring the building up above the high water table by a couple of feet. Is that was your question? So all of the work that we've been talking about what will be required is incorporated into the project and as far as managing the stormwater on the site, you'll see that we've actually incorporated those rain gardens and they're actually stormwater systems that will be able to actually benefit from an educational perspective. Mary? We'll have to unmute you. I think we have to unmute you, Mary. Yeah. Did someone? Oh, it was, try again, Mary. Am I okay now? Yes. Oh, good. Thank you. Okay, just a couple of things. One was in terms of outreach, I was wondering if it's possible to do something like have a charrette that's scheduled more or less at the same time like Saturday morning at the library. I know both of my kids couldn't make either of these because they have young children and they work full time. So young children meant they couldn't come to this one and work full time meant they couldn't come to the other one. So I was thinking someplace like the library on a Saturday morning, which according to library staff is full of children, might be a good time to do something so that more people could see this. The second thing was I had some questions about traffic flow. I saw that you changed the buses so they're separate which seems like a really great idea. But the fact that we're having twice as many students coming out of that exit in an already very, very congested place with additional affordable housing coming down the road there and I was wondering how that was gonna be handled and if for instance the exit coming out of the school whether that'll be two lanes so it won't bottle up with one person trying to turn left and keeping the whole traffic bottled up behind them or if there'll be something taken out of the common or how that will be addressed or is that not a school problem? Thank you. Thank you. Kathy do you wanna take, well I'll first start by saying we actually spent quite a bit of time with the town engineer and trying to organize the inner workings of the site to really provide a safer internal circulation patterns and we believe that this really will work best. The buses will come in and out of the southern entrance which actually will help alleviate some of the congestion up north. We're anticipating, currently every student gets a seat on the bus so we're anticipating up to 12 buses for this. As far as the northern exit out of the site we have brought the entrance down just a little bit so to allow for additional queuing to the light but we recognize that the intersection will still remain a concern for the community and Kathy I know we've started having those conversations and understanding there are other developments coming online. I don't know if you wanna talk a little bit more about that. Sure, other than to say there are other with the other developments going on Mary in that area there is an intention in DPW and also the planning department is looking at potential the grants that are available if there is actually a grant to work on intersections that are near schools, that's its purpose and with community housing coming in we already have some to the south on the sidewalk level but not specifically for the intersections so that is a town responsibility to try to start to think about how to make that work. So it's not solved but it's sitting there. So I just wanted to, I'm just gonna say a couple of other things one I love the idea of using the library and a Saturday show so I think with the council we're talking about district meetings but also how can we bring this out and I know at least one person on this call is at Opa Wood trying to think of can we bring it out to where people live as well as to a place like Jones. So we can look about scheduling that and this video is going to be posted but we also the whole package they put together we can be using it. So we definitely plan on doing more with this. And just one other as the fly on the wall when the Dinesco team was meeting with the teachers and staff what I got to see was an amazing amount of interaction where some of the initial floor plans they would bring in and they had transparency paper on top of it and the people who are gonna be teaching and using those spaces move things around. You know, it was a really very much of an interaction back and forth. So I just wanted to try to give a sense of that because it didn't have to happen in our building committee it could happen outside the building committee. Then the last pieces on the grounds one of the reasons for that $81 million is there's a lot of work on not just the ground underneath the school but improving the drainage of the fields and the land all the way around. So one of the things we're gaining are community fields. We're really restoring them. So we're getting a school and community fields which will be available to the kids but it'll be available after school on weekends and nights. So it is, I think it's an amazing resource not to mention that for the community there's an after hours there's a stage with a music room behind it. So we can be using it after hours. They didn't talk very much in the presentation. We can shut the classrooms off to be able to use it for community space both the gym and the entered spaces. So we're getting multiple uses, community uses and school uses out of this investment. So I don't want anyone to think that that money's not in there. That's one of the reasons the 81 million is where it is. And people should know we've got contingency built into that as well not just the one Margaret showed you but a big inflation factor and a design contingency. So there's beyond what is the cost of glass we've got some contingencies built in and I will stop because I see Nick Reich has his hand up. Are you still muted, Nick? Brian, it says Joanna Newman. It's Joanna Newman and Rick Reich. Yep, hi, can you hear me okay? Yes, thank you. First, I just want to say thanks for this really informative presentation. My fourth grader was watching with me before and was like, I want to go to that school. So that was really nice to hear. I wanted to ask a follow up to Mary's question. Hi, Mary. My two sons have gone and are going to Fort River and one of the ways that we sometimes get to school is riding our bikes. And there are other kids who ride bikes to school. And I'm wondering if bike racks have been built into the design and if where, if like there's sort of recommended entry if the sort of bike flow has been considered in the traffic patterns in and out of the, in these various entrances and exits. Thanks. Thank you, Nick and your son can come back and visit, right? Because it sounds like he'll, he'll unfortunately have graduated by the time the school, but we love his support and we might even get his input about playgrounds and stuff before he actually Yes, so bike racks are included. The level of detail is not there yet, but we will absolutely be providing bike racks. It's a conversation again to be having with facilities. The school principal obviously will put them in places that are easy access to the building, but we're actually, you know, might want to even consider putting some bike racks by the field so the kids can bike along and utilize the fields on the weekends and off hours. And we will have sidewalks, wide sidewalks entering both of the drives. So that we will have access for bikers and walkers onto the site. I hope that answers your question. Mary, did you have another question to follow up? You just need to put your hand back down, Mary, now that you've done it. Yeah, there was, there was another question asking if we could review the proposed surfaces in the outdoor areas. They believe there was some misinformation in the newspaper today about grass under the playground equipment. So I am not, I did not see this in the paper. I sometimes get it a day late if that was what was stated in the paper today. Tim, do you want to walk through and describe the surfaces that we're providing? Sure, as it exists now in the design, there's hardscape with painting in between the building and the play areas. The play areas themselves, where you'll have playground equipment is a board-in-place rubber surface that is soft and allows water to flow through it and is soft for the second that anybody falls off the playground equipment, you all get hurt. That same surface is used on this play area, which is an area that can be plowed or brushed off in the winter and will allow outdoor play, not on a hard surface year-round. There are quite a few months in Amherst where there could potentially be ice or snow and not a place that you want to play on, but this takes care of that. And then beyond those and the hardscape where the basketball is, there are the fields, which is grass. So I hope that answered the question. Johanna or Nick? I don't know who's behind that face. There you go. What's your name again? Yep, hi, it's me again. Thanks for the clear and specific answer to my first question. We, Johanna, who's here in the background and I have one other question. We're wondering, there was a mention earlier of operating costs being improved at this site. And I'm wondering that to me seems like a very compelling argument about the whole project and one that I think might help sway people who have questions about the project. And I'm just wondering if there is like a specific breakdown of operating costs for the two elementary schools right now and sort of being able to, are we able to put that side-by-side with estimated operating costs for the new building and sort of make an apples-to-apples comparison? Thanks. Yeah, you're welcome. Yes, I'll start Kathy and you can feel free maybe to jump in. What we've done is we have taken the costs for gas and electricity, right? We're not talking about water or some of the other operational costs but for gas and electricity, we have taken the costs of what it is for Wildwood and for Fort River right now. And then we, that's approximately $260,000 annually. And with this being an all-electric and the renewables on site which will produce the electricity needed for the building, you don't get a 100% payback because there are gonna be times over the year that you will need to utilize some of the electricity for the building in the winter, for example. But Kathy, I believe we were stating that it's approximately $250,000 savings annually for going all-electric and utilizing the PVs. That's just the utility side, Nick. So, and that estimate was based on the current projection for Fort River plus Wildwood with oil and gas, oil at Wildwood and gas. We didn't update it to what that's gonna look like three years from now where those are going but Mike worked on as we consolidated the two schools, what other operating costs will be changing as well. And we have some estimates of those. But again, we're working on it. Suppose this all happened this year rather than projecting what the cost of books will be to three years or four years from now. So there is a pretty compelling case that we are right now operating at a capacity that's basically inefficient not to mention that we've got energy hogs as buildings. When Tim first reported insulation in the current walls, he said, actually, the R value is a less than one or you know what, but you don't have it. It wasn't built with this and ideas. So it's beyond energy that we'll be saving. And Mike, at some point we can put something together that is showing that. And that's an ongoing savings. That's not just what we would have been spending otherwise. Someone asked what if there's a date for when construction is expected to begin? So right now our expectation is that we will start construction in the summer of 2024. So we've got a lot of work out of us in a short period of time. But yes, summer of 2024, we want to start thinking about if there's a way that we could potentially have an early site package or a site enabling package so that we can jumpstart the construction. So when the general contractor comes on board we can get going immediately. So we have to start considering if there's any benefit and having any early site packages to help expedite the process. But right now we're looking at the summer of 2024. And you know, I just want to say if anyone is interested in a greater level of detail of timelines, if you just email me at the council it's my last name, initial C and then at emmerismass.gov we have more deep tail timelines for what Dawn is just saying, you know, when will this happen? When will that happen? Including when does the demolition occur? It's a quite a detailed timeline assuming that the green light is turned on on May 2nd. So I'm not seeing any other hands, Dawn, you know, just... Yeah, I don't see. Okay, Alice just raised her, Alice's hand is up. Yeah. One more time for Alice. Yeah. I'm thinking... First of all, I didn't thank you for all this hard work. It's very, very exciting. But I'm thinking that there will... That during... Well, I started out thinking about the demolition and then thinking about other things that if there's a way to accommodate people who come by and want to watch, that would be really... I could imagine that there might be people in that situation because it will be fun to see what's going on. So just keep it in the back of your mind. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, no, thank you. And who's really gonna be excited to watch are the kids, right? I mean, this is such an amazing opportunity for the students to see their new home come to life right before their eyes. We'll certainly work with Mike and his team on... We usually put fence, obviously, we put fencing, not usually, we always put fencing around it, but sometimes we'll put like a fabric so that people cannot look in, right? For distraction and dust and whatever. But a lot, sometimes we actually put like large peep holes or we'll certainly think about the ways that the community can watch and see this project come to life. And I just wanna add one other thought that we've had on generating both excitement and interest. We don't have to call this the Fort River School, we can. So a teacher and some people suggested, maybe we have a naming contest where we get the kids and the teachers and a bunch. The other thing is when the school opens, we're hoping the school itself becomes something the kids can learn about because it's a net zero school and then the town can learn about, how does this work? And we're gonna have, we haven't figured out yet, but energy monitors, just something that explains how this building functions and it can be part of an education program. So I think there is at the beginning and at the middle and the end, this becomes a community project that's pretty exciting. Very exciting, I am, very excited about it. And Kathy mentioned, if anyone has any further questions at Shane C at amherst.gov, is that correct? Amherstmassma.gov. I'm listed up on the town website, so just email me and I'll be happy to get answers if I don't have them. And we also have a website that we will be posting these community forums and all the other information as well. Margaret, sorry, I don't have it up my head. It's amherst-school-project.com. Amherst-school-project.com. And it's got several tabs, but it's got presentations, it's got background information about the project, timelines, and if there's an event, you can go there to find the link to get to any public meetings about the project. All right, well, thank you everyone. This was great. It was actually nice to see some new faces and we're excited, as excited as you are, to really make this a reality for the town of Amherst. So continue to stay involved. You'll continue to hear from us. This truly is just wrapping up the schematic design. And so we have a couple of more iterations. We'll be entering design development on March, on April, or sorry, May 3rd, I think is the date that we'll be entering design development. So this is not the end of the conversation. And we thank you all for all of your input. You're really truly making this a better school. Thank you all. Night. Good night, everyone. Thank you.