Live reporting - School Building Committee presentation

H. PRESENTATIONS/DISCUSSIONS - Model High School
Sean Fennell, Jim Jordan, Tom Mercer


meeting since the fall of 2008


2005 NEASC - accrediting agency cited failures and put on warning status


ADA compliance
safety concerns with science labs
lack of a sprinkler system


Fall of 2006, study on feasibility of renovation of the high school completed. Moratorium on school building projects by state in effect from 2003 until 2007  


Oct 2008 - appointed the current School Building Committee


Sean had worked on Keller Sullivan, Fire Station, DPW, the Senior Center and the Horace Mann complex


3 members of the Franklin Committee went with the MSBA committee to select the architect for the feasibility and schematic design


Castle Boos was the 3rd choice and ultimately came under contract after the other two choices could not reach an agreement. Savings of over $500K by signing this contract (compared to the prior two).


Worked to develop 3 options for presentation to the MSBA with one recommended.


Option 1 - Limited renovation and addition
Option 2 - Gut renovation
Option 3 - A new design and built school


Option 1 - $86M
Option 2 - $96M
Option 3 - $97M


At this time, the model school program was raised but it was by invitation only (from the MSBA)


Presented all 3 options without a recommendation and attempt to see if they could get an invitation
Requested to meet with facilities assessment subcommittee of MSBA


June 29 - MSBA Executive Director, Catherine Craven came to tour FHS
after the tour, the invitation to the model school program came


August 2011 - toured all four of the model school samples
interviewed all four architects in Sep 2011
after the interview process, Ai3 was chosen for the Whitman-Hanson model


design cost for a new building run 10% of the total project
for the model school, the design costs are between 4 and 4.5%, a substantial savings for the community


Space summary voted on in Nov 2011 and presented to the MSBA in Dec 2011


FHS is unique as it is the single largest model school project
the most exciting project he has worked on in his years


The Whitman-Hanson building and design was selected as a "model" after it was built and evaluated
The top performing high school in energy savings and water reuse
less than one half of one percent of change orders during the building process


Display of key points of the Ray Memorial Library features of Greek Revival 


Discussion of how those elements were incorporated into the design of the new building, very well done!


The rounded corner is the administration area of the school
The tower sticks out to provide a distinct target for how to get in to the building, come here it says


20% more sq feet of educational in the new building MORE than in the current building


Existing field house is 27,000 sq ft - a square foot print with a slopped wall. Some of the space is not usable due to the slope. The new gym is 17,000 with another 6,000 of waling track for a total of 23,000 sq ft of usable space


Enrollment designed for 1650 students


Reimbursement rate before incentive points = 50.79%
Incentive points = 8.73%
Total reimbursement = 59.52%


reimbursement rate started at between 30-35% in 2008


MSBA chosen the total enrollment number from our data (cohort studies, birth rates, etc.)


8 additional classroom, each 200 sq ft bigger


Additional 1.73% granted at Jan 4, 2012 meeting. This increase came from the performance of our current building maintenance. The norm is .9%, we received 1.73%  Hence, our building maintenance process gained us additional savings


Choosing to go with a 2% LEAD Silver rating, no financial gain in going higher (i.e. gold)


4.5% contingency on the $100M project - already built into the budget to account for some issues encountered along the way.


There is an additional $2,688,274 contingency also built into the total
This is a 'turn key' total, includes all the furnishings, new fields, site prep, demolition, etc


The $47 million number for Franklin cost is the high cost, it could be as low as $45 million


What is not reimbursable?
The State favors money being used for the building and leaves out the site work from their reimbursement factoring


Debt exclusions retiring in FY16 Remington Jefferson $15, FY 24 Keller Sullivan $50, FY 25 Horace Mann $50


The amount even with an approval this year, construction this year, and opening according to schedule in the Fall of 2014 would not really hit the tax bills into FY17


Proposed date March 27th


Wording of the ballot question is set by State law, in the case of a debt exclusion the dollar amount is not listed.