##VIDEO ID:GB2jH2JV1V8## e e e e e e e e e e [Applause] all right take it off M yeah you are these all right we're off mute okay mute welcome everybody Welcome um my name is Mattel from the top maner I just want to say hello and welcome everybody to The Forum tonight if there are any boards that need to call themselves to order this would be the time to do that so um I don't if anybody is on a board and sees that you have a quorum P yeah I'm going to call um call a meeting of the permanent building committee to order um take up a vote attendance um John coup yes Nancy Tumi yes um I think that's it n Nancy ziml here Mar doer here Pat Tomkins here okay any other boards that need to be called to order yes Nancy agent um like order AG Ros Marie je and Carson andn shley and that's it okay any other boys to order that we know I don't think this for anybody on Zoom that we could that needs to be called to order it's the select is there okay we do need to be called to order then so oh I'd like to call the W S board order um here in the room is Karen and Mark and online we havea and Chris as well thank you thank you thank okay any other boards I think we covered all of them that I saw okay again welcome I I want to welcome you on behalf of the town of reading to our forum tonight um it's my pleasure to have you here at the blesson street Center hopefully people signed up into a few tours if you weren't familiar with the building um we're here tonight to discuss a very important project um a potential new recal and recal for those of you that don't know stands for reading Center for active living um this will be a Community Asset that will serve people of all ages many hours of work have brought us to this point and we look forward to sharing our plans with you tonight and the real reason we're here too is we want to get a lot of feedback from you so if you have ideas having heard what you're here tonight please pass them on that'll just make our project that much better so I I appreciate that and we do have a this works a mission statement that we've came up with I'm going to put that up there so people can read it and you can see um all the constituencies that are affected by the new project here tonight so I'm not going to do a lot of the talking we have experts in the room that are going to do that um so at this time I wanted to introduce our owners project manager OPM Brian um raka he is from The Firm of Turner Townsen and heri we call them tth he's going to tell you more about the plans and also introduce our architect who's going to tell you more about the plans as well so at this time I'll turn it over to Brian thank you man well good evening everyone glad to see so many faces here and as Matt said I hope you had a chance to take a tour of the facility if you haven't there are also some signs that you'll see hanging up on the wall and that will help provide some insights into some of the issues that this facility um is facing some of the shortcomings um but besides the shortcomings of the facility you know this project is also about some changing needs within the town of reading uh there have been demographic shifts that have been happening for the elderly population and it's important that we address those needs as part of this project um so in addition to that as we look at this project there's also a desire to bring together the needs of the elderly with some of the other community services that are offered in the town into one centralized location and that's going to be the home for the social gas Gatherings and also access to various support services so tonight I'm going to start by providing a brief overview um of the project how it developed oops whoops okay so that very brief overview are there any questions I think we're haunted um but yeah I'll start off with a brief brief overview of the project um after that I'll turn it over to Mark doer um who's going to talk about the important work that was accomplished with the recal committee leading up to this building project and after that we'll hear we hear from Joel here um BH plusa Architects will talk about the stages of design that they've completed so far as well as bringing you up to speed on the latest Design Concepts that are being explored um after that I'll touch on what lies ahead for the project and then turn it back over to the town so that we can talk a little bit about how the town of bring manages its facilities and capital programs so maybe we can get that slide back up with the agenda and then after all that um we'll be opening it up to questions and answers and I encourage all of you to speak up you know provide some feedback ask relevant questions we're that's what we're here for tonight it is to make sure that everyone understand understands what this project is about and all the phases that we've been in through so far so I do have a video that I wanted to show you so hopefully this will yeah try May so maybe this is one of the shortcomings of this did this yeah I just went to well we have lots of great slides but without the re see all the pretty it's not Jo you're good at sketching right can sketch out the design live not put you on the spot or anything is it the wrong input perhaps can we switch that with this I don't know if I prob busy just got to job well it's a great time for Refreshments so if you haven't grabbed the sandwich help yourself you're doing pretty good yeah just texted t ago you have any good jokes maybe just um say that we're going to a second okay so this is the agenda that I reviewed with you previously so hopefully this is our it's the video it's cute how you play the video that scroll to the our vision for the reading Center for active living or recal is for it to be a Community Asset that will serve not just the mission of Elder and Human Services and ready but our Recreation and Veterans divisions as well it will Foster health and wellness by promoting social interaction strengthen our community and provide a point of access to programs and services for all ages a community needs assessment by the University of Massachusetts in 2017 demonstrated a key area of need our Town's aging population where in the coming decades the number of residents aged 60 and older will increase to make up as much as 29% of our population already more than onethird of our households have at least one person who is 60 or older and because many of our seniors live alone our aging demographics present key concerns around social loneliness household safety and economic security meanwhile the existing Pleasant Street Center has been deficient to the needs of our community for many years the 140y old building has accessibility issues like no bathroom on the main floor no one on one space insufficient kitchen facilities no dedicated spaces for activities like art Fitness social events or a library and is unable to run more than one large program at once the current Center is lacking both as a senior center and as a community hub for recreation and events our Town's permanent building committee consisting of town leaders committee members and volunteers is overseeing the project which aims to create an inclusive welcoming and supportive space that meets the interests and needs of the growing senior population while simultaneously meeting the town's need for additional recreational space including a gym for all age groups to ensure recal is a place for our entire Community the committee is leading the project with these guiding principles a designated senior Hub meant to meet the needs of reads to 60 plus residents with full day evening and weekend hours to be age friendly and welcoming to everyone designated space for Recreation and Veterans offices and gym activities with opportunities for all ages safety and accessibility inside and out maximal access to programs and services to those who are unserved or underserved all while being environmentally conscious the recal project is anticipated to go to town meeting for approval in the spring with public approval and a special election to follow before then there are several ways you can engage with the recap project including an additional public forum scheduled for early 2025 through public newsletters on the project like pleasantries and the town manager mid and by signing up for notifications and diving into the project details on the recal website just navigate to the Department section of the town of ready website then click on the recal dedicated page under the Public Services tab excellent so hopefully that was not only loud but also provided some clarity so how did we get to this point as you can see here from the timeline uh the project has been developing now for almost a decade uh began in 2015 with some updated demographic data that called attention to the growing number of seniors in the town and then the University of Massachusetts was brought in to study the needs of this changing population and help identify how reading can better serve as part of the community with this high level information reading then established the recal committee in 2021 to further explore how these ideas could be incorporated into the town this was done through Community surveys public forums and by researching how other communities have addressed similar needs and Mark doer will talk more about that in a little bit once the needs and goals were established the town brought in BH plusa Architects to develop a building program and determine how the project goals could be met this work concluded with a study of the three most desirable project sites one of which was this location that we're sitting in right here and ultimately the selection of the preferred site for the project so with that defined program and selected site in hand BH plusa has begun the configuration of the facility and determining what the building will best you know what what building will best suit the the needs and goals of the community and we'll be going over that in a little bit so I'd like to turn it over to Mark doxer to phison and all the important work that the recal committee did between 2021 and 2023 thanks hi folks I think that I need to sit so that get picked up by rctv as well um so really what I want to do is talk a little bit about the why why we're here and what we want to talk about and then I'm going to hand it over and and we'll talk more from an architectural point of view about what are we talking about what what's it going to look like what are we propos it why we proposing it that way so I see a lot of new faces in the room so some of you have heard a little bit about re Cal which was the Runing Center for active living committee and that was I think said I'm seeing my fellow members and the fellow former members I think there are seven citizens that got together and our task was to understand what's happening in terms the demographics how things are changing to look at other communities and see what they're doing to support their population and and one of the key pieces of what we talked about was our Charter from the select board and that was to focus on the age 60 plus community so we hear senior Elder 60 plus you know all sorts of different terms but the notion here is that this is very inclusive supporting members of this community who who perhaps their kids now finished with school they may or may not be at retirement or have been retired for a while and to offer programs Services activities to support what they what they want and need I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the things that we did on recal just to give you that background and then again we'll talk more about the the architectural aspects and some other things from there so our Focus here was to really look at the need that's going on based on as as Brian mentioned more than 10 years of work we've had all sorts of studies come back that said you need to be doing more to support your your community of a60 plus that was 10 years ago what's happened since then is the population of this community has continued to grow with age 60 plus that's the fastest growing portion of the community there we go so the uh I noticed that the video said 29% we've got 30% it's very substantial and I I don't see Maryland on the road but I think Maryland might even say it's there she is might be going higher and faster this is the fastest growing segment higher and FAS higher and faster there we go the space is part of the problem in terms of what we need to do here we want to reach more members of the 60 plus community so there's certainly folks that have um different physical capabilities there are folks who are already attending the center and that's wonderful and the numbers of those people which I'll talk about in a moment have been going up dramatically postco and even compared to pre-co levels more and more people are trying to participate in the activities which is wonderful we need more space to be able to do it it needs to be more accessible and inclusive so what are the space constraints what are we talking about so this lovely building it's about 4550 ft of usable space this room that we're in now is the only large room that there is which means if you want to have an activity that has a fair number of people you need to get in line there are only certain number of things we can do and then they have to be cleaned up in between before the next one can happen which is very very limiting in terms of what's happening the capacity 60 people with tables and chairs 85 people with only we have more people that want to participate than that on the second floor we have two program rooms a lounge that can hold 16 people if you have a table 20 of is just chairs and a kitchen art room that holds 12 people at the table 15 with chairs many of our programs have weight lists because there just isn't enough space um Center usage is increasing um over last year up 11,753 and Chris sent me the numbers I apologize Chris I didn't I only looked at them very very quickly but even um since that time the usage continues to go up the number of people using the center continues to go up here are some examples of some of the issues that we're facing you've got the tight kitchen the multi-purpose room that we're in right now you can see the other rooms if you were able to take a tour and I hope you were able to take a tour you can see you know this is a lovely facility it's just not sufficient for the needs that we have we have no private space we have an office the hallway we do registration in the stairwell we we make do with what we have as best as we can um nurse and Senior case workers there's not any privacy or one-on-one space that exists today waiting areas in the hallways the game room note the pool cues um leaning up against the table that was not done artistically that's because you can't hold the queue all the way out there's not enough room it's too small and you take computer room in the basement which um has not been functioning as well as you'd like so no bathroom on the first floor no private offices no oneon-one space space constrained kitchen can't run multiple programs at the same time no dedicated space for art Fitness social and Library we have very limited parking here downtown um we had issues with a smell of gas being reported by people that are that are inside the building in in facilities doing a great job working to understand it to fix it to see what's going on and there are some aging systems that are in this go with that will will Le some [Music] attention we we recal went out and we did a lot of different kinds of activities I'll talk to you about a couple of them right now one of them is we aside from the studies we also did a series of community surveys they validated that facilities and programming is not sufficient for age 60 plus and getting worse as the population grows we did a survey there were 1472 responses to the survey that we did some of the things that's been out were very interesting and one was a very important question of should it be a senior center or a community center with dedicated space focused on the ag60 plus population and you can see some of the results for folks aged 70 plus they prefer the senior center nearly half of the respondents preferred an all ages Community Center including designated space and programming for residents age 60 plus and if you look at respondents under age 60 they prer all ages Community Center so the bottom line results here kind of indicate hey if you focus on this all ages Community Center with this dedicated space and resources that best meets the needs of the community we held three Community forums more than 170 participants that came to those all sorts of things talked about how people see this community how people see the town already close nit feel safe social and cultural great things close to Boston nice downtown resources and some minuses housing costs tax rate getting around as we are starting to Envision the center the discussion was an age inclusive space meeting lots of needs very flexible and adaptable and a discussion about challenging interesting and active programs so that's for all populations age 60 plus you heard a discussion of different times of day so not just daytime activities evening activities weekend activities and the ability to go across Generations as well specific needs again you're going to hear these words over and over but I'll try not to say them more than one or two more times social space meals computer classes a movie room or movie space evening and weekend programs one-on-one meeting space we know parking and transportation are issues that will have to be dealt with with whether it's a a new location or if it's not a new location those are problems that's still at play in us right now dedicated space and even the notion of how do we deal with the cost issues cost or programs low and no cost with a strong preference we really had a great opportunity with the ARA money that came to this community we were able to utilize that to offer a variety of programs here at the pon Street Center and not have to charge for a lot of those activities or charge minimal fees that was a great that's part of what's encouraging more and more people to participate so a couple things specifically on the study I you it's available on the website so I don't want to go into too much detail but what you can see is the the light blue on the left that's inside the red circle you can see by age groups where the focus was on an all ages Community Center so as I mentioned in in the population ages um 70 plus certainly the focus was on Senior Center only and then you can see in the other f that responded more and more interested that all ages Center on the right hand side we asked where should the center be and there were a number of folks who said hey I'd love it to be in the downtown it's about 30% kind of this this blue segment right there located outside of the downtown is the lighter blue segment at 10% no preferen is the yellow at 43% so clearly it would have been lovely to do it downtown but unfortunately doesn't many properties that could satisfy the needs that are downtown um here we talked about what the usage would be if we build it will you use it the answer is yes so if you take a look at again inside this red circle over here all ages Community Center including designated space and programming for residents age 60 plus 76% of the respondents said they use it on the right hand side there was a question that was saying hey would you pay for it the answer came back yes so would you pay $100 $200 $300 more than $300 what you can see in there is the thereit focus in that range saying hey in the kind of $200 plus range there are a lot of folks that said they would support it and again this is an all ages survey that went out we then went out we looked at 15 other pure communities so so either community centers senior centers and other communities to understand what do they do what are the best practices what are the things that we should be looking for as we're thinking about building a new center we also survey them to see what kinds of facilities what kinds of programs did they do and again all this information is on the website it's all available so you can see it more in depth um but you can see that this notion of having multiple programs at once is very important um thinking about wheelchair assess is very important you know there are some of these big ones individual counseling areas creative arts room Reception Area it's interesting also you see for example the gym it shows you know 6 out n don't the ones that we looked at we asked folks when we went out and we said so as you think about what you've done what you built in the community is there something you do differently if you had a chance to do it again and many of them answered yeah we'd have a gymm other things that popped out um the average Care Community spends quite a bit more on their Elder Services than the town ofing does at this point now the town of writing has been increasing you can see from in fiscal 22 $220,000 it's getting up to almost double that at this point in terms of what's going on but compared to our Pure communities spending substantially less transportation and parking are big issues that we've been looking into some of you may seen um different communities announcing their almost Uber like programs where they set up their own little systems there the Salem Skipper and I think there's another one in Burlington that just formed those are the kinds of things that we're going to need to be looking at also to get transportation to the center food prep and meals is a big activity going on at a lot of centers also that that we're currently not tackling so what's it missing and again last time I reiterate space for multiple programmed activities social space dedicated areas for Arts technology and gaming more parking outdoor activities evening hours a gym and a walking Track a walking Track that can be used all the time indoor conditions rather than outdoor conditions more usable kitchen space more storage better accessibility private offices one of the things that we think really makes sense here is bringing different aspects of the community together different priorities so obviously age 60 plus adults intergeneration AAL programs outdoor wreck and indoor wreck and Community Health Improvement plan a lot of the mental health issues social health issues are things that having the right facilities and programming can address much better than we currently can as the community oh sorry I just want to jump to the last one another activity that's very important here is veteran services this is a facility and opportunity to better address their needs along with elder Human Services and [Music] Recreation so how do we go about finding the right location what did we go through so we looked at six sites the top three were looked at more carefully we went through a ranking process and what you'll see here is all of the different groups and committees that got together reviewed the different locations and then each of them interestingly voted unanimously that Simon's way was the preferred site it includes the recal committee the Council on agent the permanent building committee the H plusa Architects tth as the owner's project manager and select work Ed 50 in favor of sign way the preferred s and with that I turned it over to Jo thank you well I'm going to understand if they can't see me on Zoom that's okay um because I need to point at the screen here bar said a lot of what is in the beginning of this I'm not going to repeat too much but I just want to remind folks that we're at the fourth step of four stage process in the first 3 months of the project last year last October to the end of the year last year we spent figuring out what those spaces were that would meet those needs that Mark just discussed so that's programming what to include and if you include that how big of a room do you need what types of rooms and and that was all done and work through a year ago and that's the basis of what we're seeing tonight so tonight we're at step four is what will it look like when it's built and you accommodate all these needs Mark uh described it's really a great process we're working on this and last week we get an email where they really clarified The Guiding principles of recal it's all very synergistic and it's all working like a machine we're getting information back from Council on Aging Recreation other staff it's really informing all the things about a building from the energy use to the programming We've Ended up with a working program that program from last year isn't Frozen in in in rock it's evolving it's changing we're adjusting rooms here and there and making a combinations as people see how the plan works out and it'll continue to be evolving through conversations like this we went through that process of figuring out a site and the only thing I want to say about that is we've done this for 30 years there's no perfect site there's good sites there's great sites but there's never the perfect site there's always something that you can find as a fault about a site so the best thing to do is to find and identify what those issues are and then try to overcome them and it's hard to see it but part of that site ranking process that we went through with councel on Aging Recreation all those different groups had criteria that identify what's good and what's bad about the site and so that we could as a team identify well maybe this is a shortfall of the sence bo site what can we do to improve on that shortfall so the very methodical analysis and evaluation as a method to the MS so where are we on schematic design we're very quickly uh trying to get through December where we can put this job out to our cost estimators and to to hes cost estimators to put a cost in front of the community and evaluate what we've been doing for the last year and a half and get much better numbers on it and then use that to inform the design some more so it's it's not as if the process is stopping here in December but we want to bring cost into the the equation and in in January and use that to inform the project this is an aerial view there you have Burbank side Arena here you have Range Road Simmons Way Comes or Simmons Road comes up here and then it Forks off Simmons's road goes up to the plane fields on the top Range Road goes to the shooting range at the end of the site this is your site of the building so the building's close to the end the drop off comes in at this point so so the cars don't have to go too far to get to the drop off there's a nice parking lot we're showing 94 spaces there the opportunity to add 14 spaces here if you need them in the future and then at the end you'll see the area that's designated not funded by this project not part of the project but looked at as a master plan manner so that we can address some of the issues that come with a joint use facility so you get eight pickle courts in a separate parking lot for pickle ball so you don't have to worry about pickleball players using the community center or recel or the Senior Center parking spaces and you see this white area there there's a shade structure there's a storage structure there's a acoustical barrier at that end of the site the whole goal is to move the pickle ball remote from the building much like you have on the highway create acoustical barrier so the noise doesn't drift over to the Earth and to create some quiet spaces Outdoors that are well fenced so you really won't have a problem between the two functions you can go to sandwich and you can see exactly this same size building gy Senior Center 12 pickle ball and four tennis courts much closer to building you can here the windows are quiet no one complains in fact everybody loves it because you can come in one shot stop shut so as I mentioned the pickle ball is not part of the funding but it's on the drawing so that we can address these things noise parking and really get a comprehensive solution to the site okay this is the first floor of the building that's the second floor of the building a lot of talk about the gym and the gym being part of the community aspect which which it is but I guarantee you it's a part of the senior center they will love the pickle ball they'll love the track we have seniors using the basketball courts we it it's really part of it it's not there to attract the rest of the community I think as you get into this project you'll find socialization Recreation is all enhanced by that program but that being said we've still taken into heart the idea of a senior Hub and this end of the building is that senior Hub you'll come in the building and here's your main program rooms there two program rooms on this first floor there two more on the second floor and each one is just 200 ft smaller than this room each room is 1,000 ft I think this room is 12200 ft so they're very large program rooms you have four of them in that senior Hub you have your own restaurant every restroom is a single user handicapped accessible private clean no gang shared restrooms with anyone else using the building the senior offices are here Senior Center offices why are they there they have great views out to the parking lot to the entry of the building when folks come in in the middle of the winter and someone slips on the ice there's three people right here that have their eyes looking at inside outside and monitoring that building it's really a great uh opportunity in the building and then at this end of the building you sort of work your way from the lobby to the program to the more recreational part we have the cafe Lounge there's a coffee shop coffee counter several seating areas different types of seating areas and I'll show you renderings in a card card room at this end of the building why is it there this is really the beautiful end of the site you can sit in those rooms lots of Windows looking at the beautiful landscape that's out here at this end of the site we put the gym in the kitchen for the multi-purpose room on the other end of the site which is a Long Range Road that's not as nice of a view so you building zon to maximize its orientation the main multi-purpose room come into the L you can get right into the multipurpose not unlike here but there's at least a bigger Lobby you come in you want to hit a program in the multi purpose room it's right there and if you want to use the gy then the gy is on that end so you should sort of see the a line going through the building in the middle this is the senior Zone that's the mix Zone and I'll show you how that that goes together second floor is very similar again you have your program rooms restrooms that support the program rooms but you have a billiard room so now there's a people will say well you need two billiard tables and in the last 10 years that we've been sort of adding billiard rooms in the senior centers they've gr to where Franklin Winchester Wilmington they all have in Senior Center tournaments and when you have those friendly tournaments you need two pool tables but it's a way it's my point is and I didn't make it very well is socialization comes out of the programs it's not just putting chairs in the hallway and thinking oh now people will socialize it's creating spaces in the building like the lounge like the card room like Bard's room like an outdoor deck on the second floor where things can happen and the socialization comes out of the program think about a kitchen when you're in the kitchen at Thanksgiving what's happening in that kitchen socialization so we'll design the kitchen for the senior center to offer that opportunity and I'll show you pictures of how that's done so here's a diagram of the front of the building and I know we've gotone a little bit far with the renderings but we we didn't want people to look at plans and say I didn't understand the building but that's the main door there's a canopy that comes out to the street so someone in a wheelchair can go into the building undercover no snow no ice and this side of the building the white side with the green top that's the senior center Hub the Lobby's in the middle and to the right is your community room multi-purpose room and the gym is behind that what that does is it creates your main entry but if kids want to come in and use that gym at night or if there's a men's league that wants use the gym at 10: at night there's a b entry they can all come in use the gym you don't have to worry about them coming into the lobby of the building walking through the building messing up things they can come they can go and in fact there's there own restrooms at that end of the building you want to have a town meeting select board meeting in the multi-purpose room you can do that again they don't have to use the restrooms that are part of the senior center there's the restrooms down by the B section that serve those functions so there's a way good neighbors make good good fences make good neighbors and that's the idea here is to Zone this building so spes can be shared and you can have good neighbors so when you come in the building very diagrammatic but you have one who's there to say hello to greet you to organize you here's where you sign in to my senior center and back here there's a the directory of today's events and here number four is going into the multi-purpose room why did we put the directory back there it could be behind the desk here it could be on the wall here but when we put the directory back there boom I'm looking at the program and there is my senior Hub and I can go to the program I can go to the card room I can go to the jard room I can get anywhere in the building that I want to and this is telling me how to do it so it really draws folks into the building it organizes you and the organization of the building is super simple there's this corter that runs here here my back is the gym and a multi-purpose room I go to the end of that hallway there's a large Lounge we had a smaller Lounge we met with the COA last week they said we really think you need to have more space for socialization but there are three different zones there's this front zone for coffee a center Zone with fireplace for more casual seating and the back zone for maybe working on your laptop working on your collaborating with other folks um three types of seating spaces within that one zone with a coffee shop because the kitchen is at the far end of the building the other thing uh that's nice is that at this end of the building this whole Lou opens up to the outdoor patio and the out patio will have seats umbrellas and it has you don't see it on the Rings but it'll have another fence to make sure that hey you're not seeing the traffic in the parking lot but you're not also hearing that pickle ball noise when you're in your P space c game another social space and I'll tell you that this has its own door and soundof walls because a lce room is the mar room in the same sense the bricks are cracking and people are having fun it's the place to be seen we have four tables in there you could get another table in there for seing up to 20 should you w this is Falmouth Falmouth chose to put the bilard and the cards in the same room but that's not Universal because when you break the cube pool makes a lot of noise and that can be disturbing so Westboro situ all of our other projects begin to separate out uh games and Villard but not everybody does it because you can also schedule things but that's been the decision that was made working with COA on on your project create a separate room for Bard and this is only a cartoon to show you there's plenty of room in that bard SP on the second floor to put two full pool table so it's just for size but it's also the idea is you you don't have to put this on the ground floor because if you're going to play Billiards you're coming to the building to play that game so it's in the upstairs in the more remote corner where it's quiet it's not bothering any but people will go to it because they're coming to play that you don't have to put it front and center the way we might put some of the other programs in that generic room really can be exciting we can pick out a style an interior design style and work with your groups to make that build your groom really have some character and have it be fun and it will attract the male audience which I have a project in Sudbury they said we don't want a pool table we don't want Billiards they went out to look at situ they couldn't find one guy in the senior center they went upstairs and there's a whole man's club in the bilard room playing pool and said well we have to have a billion room too so it's it's a way to get folks in okay you saw in the plans of flex room a flex room is a program room it's a th000 ft room but this is a special floor you can put these types of chairs and tables on it but you can also do Zumba chair yoga it's a cushion floor it's not a full athletic floor but it's a flex space so it makes one room that much more valuable to your users typical program room doesn't have that this is really just shown for to give you a sense of how big the program rooms are they're quite large easily get 30 to 40 folks into a room like that I know there's a lot of concern about the size of these rooms so we quickly put together a photograph of what that room might be like okay this is the program room it's basically two sizes of these so each half on there's a divided wall in the middle that'ss one of these rooms and then another one on the side and then where that line is in the ceiling the Wall comes down out of the ceiling and you can have two small rooms if you want to I love this brother this is the senior center and youth center in Andover and they said instead of just having a a typical multi-purpose room we want a multi-purpose room that can be for drama so you see that it has buil-in lights it has an acoustic ceiling for that it can be for dining all the things that you see in this room but with big closets you can store anything outside of that room so they have wrestling mats and the kids come in after school and use it for gymnastics and athletic programs there's a way that we will talk to your residents to your users to the councel and agent Recreation on what's the best way to make that program room the best that it can be for read because each project really wants to be unique and I mentioned socialization these kitchens are really designed with relatively simple appliances so volunteers can get in there and work they have tables in the middle whether they're big or small this is a professional kitchen it's not really that attractive to users and you have to be a professional chef to use it the idea is to bring people in and you can do Meals on Wheels you can prepare congregate meals you can serve if you have catered events you can bring anybody in that kitchen and that table in some centers is twice as wide and it's used for cooking classes intergenerational recipe sharing all sorts of program no space in the building is without a programming purpose so the kitchen isn't just the kitchen it's a program space and last there's a room on the second floor which I'll go back to the plan and it might make a little more sense that's arts and crafts but we have another little room up there that we're suggesting do you want to think about having maybe a little maker space these have Digital Arts and Crafts materials 3D printers think about your building 20 years from now 30 years from now we don't want it to be out of date we want to have a flexible space we want to think about it in the long term and that's what some folks are thinking about for their arts and crafts programs okay and that's the gym pickle ball three pickle ball courts in the gymm a gym is a gym the basketball court has a certain Dimension so this is the smallest size gym we can make it has an official basketball court plus three official pickle ball courts the divider curtain can come down in the center of the room now in the morning you can have a preschool program on one side you can have seniors playing pickle ball on the other side the track is the most highly social space in the building do you ever see anybody walking around a track by themselves it's always in a group and you may see people in wheelchairs being pushed around the track by a group that meets 3 days a week they go through and they talk and it's a social event I didn't point it out but the plans show seating areas in the corner of the track where there's no walking error so again if you're walking around the track track you get tired you want to take a break have a chat you can do that but the socialization is also in a place of activity it's not sort of artificial it's integrated into the programming of the space this is a bird side view so here's your your patio it's not fully furnished here's the fence that would separate that from pick a wall noise in the parking lot what we're showing is there's sort of the building's broken up into three smaller buildings and here's that view this would be another U acoustic and site barrier to focus views into this more s area of the building but this is the senior Hub end of the building that has all those programs the loue the outdoor spaces this is the other end of the building the kitchen is own entry kitchen entry doesn't have to come through the name m the garbage coming out of the kitchen doesn't have to go through the mob really makes a lot of sense to have a kitchen at this end of the building and then the gym is on the far end and the gym has a big barn door so you can come out and have Zumba you can have a kids program outdoors in the spring and the fall because Zumba and yoga are hugely popular in the gym because you got more space than a, or 1200t program room okay let me just quickly go back to the plan and uh just reorganize that discussion so the senior end I just showed you the pictures of this end of the building the second floor the gym and there you can see in the corner of the gym some suggested seating areas in this corner of the gym that are stretching get loose in the morning before we are walking and I didn't mention it but I there's that program space that we think could be a wonderful maker space right off the lobby again you come into that Lobby you see virtually everything in the building including the veteran space veteran space is on the second floor right at the corner by the stair so veterans that come in have easy access to their space it's not taking Prime space out of the senior center but it's private space they don't have to feel like they're walking through the senior center because veterans aren't just seniors you can have somewhere from Afghanistan current veterans that are younger that are coming for different programs they'll just come in and get to their veteran office which this poter is not showing up well but it's it's right there off ofite the stair and again you come in the building you see it right there when you come in I hope that wasn't too lengthy and I'll turn it back to Brian for breath thank you thank you so as you can see uh lots of great ideas for this facility so far um and it's really the perfect time to get involved and start uh providing your feedback because this ultimately is for all of you as residents and for the town and your feedback will help shape the design and the overall outcome of the project so where do we go from here um go to my next slide there we go so this is where we are here uh all the way on the left at our first public for and as you can see we have another form scheduled for January and then one in March uh the January Forum will be an update on the design uh we'll start to get a initial Sense on what the cost will look like and then in the March Forum we'll have completed uh two full cost estimates and we'll have the full project budget at that point um that'll basically take us through this schematic design phase so going through the initial design putting a price to get putting a price on it doing any necessary refinements the next stage is that it's up to you um is the town ready to move forward with us is there enough support and we definitely hope that the answer is yes because this seems like a great project for this community so assuming it moves forward uh we then move into the design development phase so at that stage of the project there's still more design refinements that happen um this early stage sets the the overall design concept and the price for the project but during the design development stage that's when we go through the selections of the floor materials the windows the hpac systems and so forth so still quite a bit more work to do and that's Then followed by the construction documents phase so during that time um Joel and his team will make sure that all the ideas that were presented by the community have been captured in those drawings and that there's a a very well knit together set of documents that people can bid on and that's going to help to protect the town as you go through construction to make sure there aren't a lot of extra costs associated with it or that things don't go wrong during the construction phase then we move into bidding and then finally um the facility starts getting built So based on the timeline we're looking at now these can still change we would expect that if everything goes smoothly we could start in 2026 and that by um early 2028 we could be moving into that new facility so we do have a more detailed schedule as well that you can access through the project materials if you want to dig into it that gives you the the general overview so how can you get involved um there are a number of ways that you can get involved and what I would suggest is the first step is to check out the website that's been set up so we have a new address reading ma.gov recal and if you go to that website there's a number of areas on the left where you can explore the full project details so I mentioned earlier that this project has been developed for nearly a decade uh when we first were brought on board we had to review all the information that had been done so far and I can tell you that we were quite impressed um the town has really done a great job with understanding what the needs of the community are and working together as recal did with the public forums and surveys to get feedback and to set that initial program and also to look at um a great number of sites so I think the town really left no stone unturn when they were looking for the best location for this new facility so you can access the details of all that information um on the project website and if you navigate to the get involved section you'll see this area on the right and one of the key things is to provide feedback so um I had some discussions with some individuals here earlier today we're also going to be looking at other ways to get feedback besides through email because you we recognize that there are some people that don't use email regularly so we'll be setting something um up to address that we have a Communications Group that's part of the permanent building committee that meets uh bi-weekly to address Communications issues for the project and to figure out how to both get the information out but also even more importantly to get feedback of course you can attend the public forums just like you were here tonight we had a great showing but I would love to see even more faces next time so please reach out to your neighbors your friends tell them about the project invite them to participate and share their feedback and then on the website you can also sign up for project notifications that way you'll stay up to date with any new information that's been added or any upcoming events so I'll turn it back over to the town um first we're going to have Joe from the facilities Department talk a little about the the management of capital projects and then Sharon will talk about some of the finan aspects and then uh Pat here will talk about uh the permanent building committee and their role in these public projects thank you everybody um I'm Joel Huggins and director of facilities for the town of reading uh I've been here for just about 19 years this January and we're going to talk a little bit about the capital Improvement program um reading has a thank you so reading has a 10-year Capital Improvement program and we've um every year we go through the buildings and we assess the condition of all the equipment the roofs uh the windows any HC equipment and what we do is we meet with the officials on the school side as well as the to manager and the time accountant uh and department heads and talk about the particular 17 buildings that were responsible for so what we do is we try to gauge what the useful life of a particular piece of equipment is and then we go ahead and we um look at how it's performing over time and if it's becoming a problem it goes under the capital plan um most recent projects for instance parking Middle School group that we just completed last uh last summer we have a really robust preventive maintenance program here in ready um we maintain like I said 17 buildings there 10 municipal buildings uh and uh sorry 18 10 Municipal and eight school buildings and through the preventive maintenance program which is really what drives our department we're able to get in early and we see how the systems are performing and our contractors will tell us that the piece of equipment is starting show aging um needs to be targeted for you know a replacement and then that's how we plug it in on the capital plan uh it's kind of how we get to where we are like with the senior center and uh other projects um it's two things that drive you know like a building project one of them is um the pro programming needs for the building change over time uh the demographics can change and then just the building becomes getting to the close of the end of his useful life um and that's when we look to you know do a project like this um the last building that we did um was completed in 2015 is ring Public Library was that was a complete gut Rena and in addition the building is now 35,000 ft that is the last building that we did prior to that you can see that we replaced uh four School renewals in six years from 2000 to 2006 when I started hearing reading so that's pretty much where we are that's it and if you want to hand it to good evening everyone I'm Sharon exstrom I'm the CFO in town accountant and then to go over some of our financials or how this would work in town the um town of reading is in strong financial standing we have very strong financial policies one of those policies is that we spend 5% of our budget every year on debt and capital we try to borrow as little as possible and do as much as we can within the operating budget so that we you know save on the interest um we also have a fcom policy that that states that a project is going to cost or we're going to borrow more than $4 million that we will um ask for excluded debt we would ask for a vote of the residents um to do that because it's far too difficult to do it within the operating budget when projects get large it really squeezes out the capital that we're able to do year to year so um the town of Runing has a AAA Bond rating and they cite that we pay our debt off very quickly we don't carry a lot of debt um currently there's about 29 million of debt across the whole town and only about 11.7 in the general fund 14 million in the water department and about 2 million in sub so we really do um pay our debt off very quickly obviously with excluded debt we're going to have an eye on um the impact on the tax bill it's far too soon to talk about what that might be with the two projects but once we have final cost we will definitely be giving you some idea of how that would impact your tax bill um we will obviously um be giving you very different scenarios depending on what the term is that we're considering so the longer you borrow the longer it stays as an excluded debt the longer it hits your tax bill so if there's a way to to make it a reasonable number so that we can borrow for a a smaller term like say for this particular project where it's not as big as killing we're going to entertain all the options a 15 year borrowing a 20 year borrowing a 25 a 30 just to see what those numbers look like and just try and keep the number reasonable for the taxpayer um in terms of um tax increases that this these two projects the two major projects the recal and the kilum um and but we do have to consider the fact that some of our buildings haven't been renovated in Europe so we do want to you know think about that when we entertain the term because we will have other buildings that will have needs as we move along so that's the gist of what I wanted to say to you unless anybody has questions oh yes I'm sorry um we did have three excluded debts um in the past few years we had the high school um which fell off last year would end which fell off last year and we have one final debt payment for the library so after this fiscal year there will be no excluded debt until these projects are approved and we moveed [Music] forward oh yeah we the three excluded debts coming off about $300 is saved by the average taxpayer and an average taxpayer would be a property value of about $860,000 000 home so about $300 falls off the only issue is that your bill goes up every year so it kind of gets buried in the increase it's kind of hard to see um but your bill would be $300 larger than what you see next year if had those not fell off I'm Jane I'm the uh microphone Transportation Association today thank you um Pat Tomkins on the chair of the permanent building committee um last speaker I'll try to be brief I'm just going to talk to you a little bit about who we are and what we do I'm going to run through the the members again I'm the chair of the permanent building committee Nancy toi is the vice chair Nancy's a local architect who's probably designed half of the new houses in Reading in the last Dozen Years last couple decades maybe she's also about a 30y year town meeting member as well um Nan's in the back there couple here um John coup John cp's retired which is good CU he has a lot of time to dive into issues he's a structural engineer which means he's wicked smart and and he he latches onto an ISS issue John's not afraid to pull any punches at a meeting and tell people what he thinks so I like to call John a secret weapon John's right here um our other memb Kirk McCormack is a um he's a construction attorney he it's good to have him in the room to kind of keep us between the rails um which is important and Greg steppler is our our fifth parent building Committee Member Greg's an MVP specialist um that works for Turner Construction U anybody knows Turner is a very large excellent firm um we also have two associate members on the committee Ari Greenberg um Ari's a a mechanical engineer who specializes in in sustainable design and sustainable energy systems um we talk about geothermal Wells solar um you know solar panels he's he's he's L years ahead of the rest of us Mike mazaro is another associate member Mike's a a program manager he he serves in kind of the same role as as Brian to my left so um so it's good to have him around as a little bit of a check on Brian too um as part of the bylaws in our chter when we have a project under construction or under or we have a project um given to us there are two additional temporary members added that are added from the sponsoring agency so in this case it's Mark doxer um of the select board and and Nancy zimac who's the chair of the Council on agents so they're temporary members um that are part of the committee as well so that's who we are um what we do um so what we do our role is to administer all large construction projects for the town for the town of breing um first and foremost everything we do is a is a public meeting it's a public an open process um and as we go through through the process we will we will help the town work with Town staff to administer the project we'll we'll work with them to hire the architect and own project manager we'll review invoices and improve invoices any amendments to contracts will go through our committee and as we get through design we'll also um you know we we'll we'll have input to the design um and review documents um for the for this project specifically so this project was given to permanent building committee this past summer um it had already gone through a lot of the steps that Mark covered and what we've done since it's been given to us we've worked with Town staff to hire um tth um Joel be plus was already already on board um I'll give I'll give a quick shout out to town staff without naming any names because I uh I know that I'll leave a bunch of people out but but whether we're working with facilities or um Senior Center staff or town staff um it it's it's always a pleasure they do a great job as a town we are really lucky we have a we have a really solid staff across the board but we worked with Town staff to to hire the OPM um we we dove into the site selection a lot of people asked well you know you've got all this information three other boards have already selected Simon's way can you you know do you guys need to weigh in on this and I said yeah haven't met my committee yet yeah we want to weigh in on this and um and we came to the same conclusion but I think we came we probably asked a lot of different questions we took the The Matrix and and it wasn't good enough for us we had to mish mash it around change some percentages but again we we we took our own run at it and we ended up at at the at the uh at the same place um and you know as as as we go through schematic design we have multiple working groups we have a um a stakeholders working group that's working with a designer we have a Communications working group and a sustainability working group that are that are working with our Consultants um that's all I have and I think we're on to questions I'll this back to Brian I'm going to be uh filled on to you and bring the microphone around to people so you can stay in your seat thank you very much for your presentation this was really very informative um and I really appreciate seeing all the design and I just have a question because I'm going to make an assumption that all those pictures we saw the senior centers those are senior centers that are actively enforced in and you know being used and they all look relatively brand new so my question about our Center is how are we going to ensure that the center meets the Ada design standards the Ada and a federal law since 1990 the design standards were last totally revamped in 2010 and as I saw those pictures inaccessible I'd love to see the bathrooms inaccessible kitchens the um stair rails supposed to have a 12in extension of the railing to meet the design standard that was not seen in any of those photographs and those are just two examples so what are we going to do to meet the Ada design standards especially if this is for people over 60 disability increases with age over 26% of the United States population right now is covered under the Ada so that's my question and I know it's going to be the Architects the um building committee it's it's all of us well at the end of the a great question at the design phase it's not working CH do we have another microphone at at the end of the design phase in each phase there's a separate peer review audit of the building for ab and mass artifacture access board requirements and that's true on all the projects so at the end of this phase design development construction drawings and then even during construction that person goes through to make sure that Builder builds what on drawings from an ada perspective okay question [Music] yes I've worked with a lot of Architects um and doing this kind of work and I would like to know how do we ensure that the architect understands the functionality of the Ada because the very first paragraph of the design standard says these are the minimal requirements for accessibility and they may not meet the needs and if she take in consideration the population that is being served so how do we ensure the person is a subject matter expert thank you wonder time to formulate your answer yeah so first of all everybody that's on the team is registered as an architect and they have to be conversent with those requirements our office has been doing senior Cent since 1990 and you're right those ones that you saw are recent um in the last six years when Telly they well there's a lot of ways to do the handrails at the bottom of stairs they don't necessarily need the twoot extensions in that but well I'm going to guarantee you that that every opportunity from the designer to the peer review to every step of the way that is an important factor that's brought in to the project to make it totally accessible for not only physically disabled but there might be mentally disabled folks into the building and other uh disabilities that are using the building so that's is an important part of the design and it's not minimized yeah I would just add that um yeah as Joel mentioned they have been doing this for quite a while and it is a standard uh requirement for all Architects um also the work that we do as owners project managers is almost exclusively public work um we also provide a design review um once Joel has the drawings together so at this stage a lot of the ideas are conceptual and the floor plans are being developed these are being worked out but um I think you can rest assured that once we go through the details that all those accessibility requirements will be met that is part of uh the law questions so um on the third meeting that we have um at which point there should be um some uh cost part of it but is that also the final designs these are not the fin designs as you said it's conceptual other questions I saw your hand up elev I could see there elevators in the building absolutely so I noticed like the arts and craft room in the' 60s unit but if are those rooms going to be accessible to under 60 so if some 40 year old group wants to do an art project can they Reserve that group I mean are we going to have it open to all groups or only 160 so uh I can comment on that uh so the the town had an operational meeting I guess it was uh last week I think uh with the various departments for Elder and Human Services recreational departments and veteran services and during that meeting as well as what's been stated tonight that the priority is for the 60 plus population for the facility um what has been discussed so far and this is still in flux but that uh the primary usage of those spaces during the daytime hours like between let's say 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. would be almost exclusively uh for the 60 plus age groups um after that there might be some after school programs that trickle into some of the spaces like the gymnasium that that Joel had pointed out and then um after work hours um what what was envisioned is that the spaces would be primarily let's say 18 plus adults so there would be uh continue to be senior programs that are offered uh during evening hours we've heard from some in the community who have maybe maybe they were retired and they've gone back to work or they have other commitments during the day maybe they're taking care of grandkids and they're not able to get to the programs that are being offered during the daytime hours so there will also be programs uh for that part of the population in the evening as well as well as other people um you know maybe people in their 40s like you mentioned that are getting off of work and still have social engagements and it's important to remember that you know this is always changing so every year you have another group of people that reaches at 60 year mark and and it'll continue to happen we're now in the development process it's going to take a number of years before the facility is ready for occupancy so it's important to keep that in mind as well so part of the Outreach that was done with recal was to uh engage with some of those groups that are going to be using this facility in a few years from now or even 10 years from now and understand what those constituents are interested in as well so it's really a great question because every project is a little different in the arts and craft room you saw a huge storage room which is intended to allow multiple use but what in reality there are times you may have a quilting program going on and you can't set the quilts up take it down at 3:00 so the kids can come in your room and then set them up the next morning it all falls apart so what many of our centers are doing is what I proposed here is to have an arts and crafts room and the maker space the maker space is sort of that community space it's not claimed by anyone it's a little bit more um it's got all sorts of arts and crafts programs and then you have the other arts and crafts where you can have a big program going on that may take 3 or 4 weeks or months months for seniors to put together and you don't want to have to put it together you so times may change throughout the year when those when those rooms are available that's really an operational issue it's a design issue having the support space around that room to facilitate that flexibility I raised a question because I was thinking if it's not going be used could somebody rent that space and then pay help pay for the rent or expenses and that's one of the reasons I was thinking of don't let the space just sit there if it can be used our Recreation director Jim suiv has said in our operational meetings that if there's space that's available he can program it so and our Elder and Human Services um administrator Mr um kovaleski can do the same thing I tried I I was that close that close so yeah that's a great idea we're right with you okay uh back here thank you um we had a fall neighborhood party and this came up and it's interesting because we had Neighbors in their 50s 60s we had at least two that were the 70 plus and none of them were actually supported this project because it would is to being marketed as the community center everyone agreed that they want to support a new Senior Center but they did not want to have the tax burden of a community center so the question is is there secondary design that is smaller um questions came up um we have a library that was marketed when it was presented that was going to be a commun set and one of the gentlemen goes he's newly retired goes to the Y every morning morning and wants to know why is he going to pay for another gym when everybody at the Y in the morning is retired they're all in why so that was one question is there a secondary design that's smaller are you giving voters an option for a senior center or is there only going to be an option for a community center um and other concern for the folks who were voicing this is because they probably will at some point be the people using this and they were concerned about the additional tax to be quite honest that we're putting on our seniors for the senior center but it's perhaps going to be a much larger project so I guess I would like those issues address these are another option of a smaller decide who would like to take that one thank you so at this stage um what we've heard from the community Through the recal Outreach that was done the surveys and the community forums is that desire was to have um a center for active living that had a focus for seniors but also include included uses by other Generations um the square footage itself if you look remember the plans a majority of the square footage is for that dedicated uh senior space the big anomaly to that would be the gym space um what we've heard from the recreation department is that they currently rent space rent gym space at other locations so not having to rent the space in other locations will save the town money and help to finance some of that uh investment the other part is that um as we heard before these parts of the community that are aging into this have a desire for more active programs the pickle ball is also related to that even though that's a separate part of the project so having that uh within the senior space will provide an opportunity for to engage in some kind of recreational programs even during you know the winter months and things like that so I hope that addresses your your question M we appreciate that I need thanks thanks for bring that up Nancy I think that um one of the things that I think may be being assumed is that hey these folks AG 60 plus they don't use gyms other than going to the Wi they don't need a walking Track those aren't necessary aspects of of a new facility that we'd be putting together and I I take issue with that I think that that's not the case I think that what we're seeing from the survey as Brian just talked about as we're seeing with what other communities are doing I think what really hit me is when I heard these other communities we went to where they just built new newer facilities and we asked them had to do it again what would you do differently and they said we put it in a gym um I think it's really an important part of the project is to have that flexibility that capability I think some of the questions that have come up hey if we aren't using the space is it going to sit quietly I my personal opinion as a as an individual to the extent we can manage it and there's demand for it it could run 247 that's a bit of an exaggeration but there's an opportunity that way and I think that the community is is needing these spaces I think it's integral to what we're talking about for the age 60 plus group other questions yeah thank you great presentation Angela vinda town meeting member present five um I have a three questions and I'll get them out and you can answer them the first is you're going around talking to other people or other towns has anybody regretted having a joint space has anybody said wow we really wish we kept it just a senior center um another question I was really surprised by the different um designs for the kilin school and how they all pretty much came out at the same cost and I'm wondering if like even if we took off the gym would probably would it probably not even be that much more savings because so much of the savings go or so much of the cost goes into all of the other things um and my third question is um looks like a really big space looks beautiful with you know a front desk and everything thing um how many how do you how's it going to be staffed like have you thought about you know how many more permanent positions might be needed to sta a building bide Angel always bring me good questions um oh Joel do you want to take the first the first couple of questions anybody regret just build in the senior center and the gymnasium cost Factor yeah I I haven't heard any regrets from from doing that joint centers and they they've done a lot in fact Pat and uh his firm and ours built the first one in Randolph 8 years ago still working they love it it's uh that idea is taken off found is situ P cion wer Westboro they're all bringing that gym in fact Westboro bought an old defunct Boston Sports Club puts the senior center on the ground floor and has a whole Recreation space on the second floor for senior so it's really a growing opportunity the cost you're right when you take a square foot out of the building you generally only save about 60 cents on the dollar um because when you take a square foot out of the gym you still need the parking space the parking lot the foundations the roof it it isn't a one to one and I bet Pat can even add to that as as a contractor how um less impactful taking a square foot is out of the space um yeah I just Echo what you say when you if you back it down 10% in size you might not get 10% of the cost back and specifically sort of loing off the gym I understand that that might if you look at the plan and that might look like 30% of the C of the size of the building and say can we just LP off the gym you will not save 30% of the cost of that building the gym is you know relatively cost effective portion of the building to build and then I'm happy to try to speak to the operational and the Staffing piece um the way that is May call Jenna if I need you all right but um staff has met talk about how we offer programming in this space and how our staff together will um be able to program multigenerational space so um these plans that Joel has put together do not include any new Staffing we believe that we can do this work with existing Staffing and then at night we would be hiring some part-time people if it's Recreation that's managed in sort of the the evening programming right um maybe we're doing some middle school after school special programs um maybe we have the gym open for men's leagues um we can have night yoga I'm into it God knows I need to go um Jim uh through our Recreation funding through our revolving account we can hire uh parttime staff so it would not have an impact on our operational budget maybe that's optimistic I mean if Mark wants to do it 24/7 you know we're going to have to talk to him about the budget just a bit but um Town staff take take um our program very seriously we take our budgets very seriously we do conservatively budget um and we have worked with the design team to be able to bring It Forward um with the existing Staffing in fact one of the really great things that uh is included is some swing space that offers private space with a nurse um upstairs and then also visiting professionals so shine counseling um tax preparation some of the regular programs that we offer but we can now offer them in the daytime and at night so like when my mother was going through retirement I needed help to get help her move through her retirement and that would have been great for me to access so just by way of example is that correct Jen I get that right all right anybody else J yes yes sir s thanks um another thing that U was talked about early on that I would imagine Still Remains in in the plan is that there our consulting firms that that work and Joel had recommended one to us already that um look at how you need to staff space based on what you're looking to do so in addition to what already has been generated internally in terms of the thinking about it these are folks that do it professionally and can give us guidance on okay here's exactly what you're going to need to make sure that you can run that so that would be part of the project um remember I showed the slide early on about how much we spend um in Elder Services human and Elder Services compared to other communities I think that we have not been spending perhaps as much as we're going to need to and I think that's a a priority inside the budget that the town is going to need to tackle also I mean sure you could you just also maybe a background on the thinking behind putting this project with killum before the voters in such a close proximity uh in terms of sticker shop because I think that's a concern a lot of us have about how how voters going to look at these two very big projects coming at them in such a short time if you could give us a background on why it was yeah um you want to take it because I you want me to you want okay we can take a different run at it different ways um so I've been working on both of these projects in different ways beginning with the procurement of the designers and the opms to the different project um they have developed uh organically on their own paths so msba accepts The Killing school project into its own piece and then U this project recal began 10 years ago and then with the arpa funds moved into the feasibility study phase so each project has moved independently and and it's moved at the rate that it's had to move at um and then we brought in the OPM over the summer we started that process so they've kind of come together together on their own and what we're looking for and what's really important is to hear sort of you know feedback from the community about you know where where folks are with that um we think that these projects are are very important and we're bringing them forward to the public in the right time frame in in the timeline that you would um that we would naturally follow for these projects so Mark you did a great job a quick I think that um what the town of the select board I think is going to have shared is that there are some um High priorities for for large projects and we owe it to the community so that everybody knows what those priorities are what's being considered how much they're going to cost and no one has a surprise based on that I think we learned a little bit from the library project where people pushed back pretty hard because they got surprised not that they necessarily had a problem with it but that they didn't know so we want to make sure because people know what's going on and if the voters decide the timing shouldn't be exactly right they want to move it that's up to the voters to do that but to not share um what is kind of in the in the vision I think would people would feel that they they didn't have a full picture and I think we want to make sure everybody has a full picture um it's also really important if you look at the two projects together we're looking at preschool through our entire population of our age as a community we bring them for they're both together and there's no way any of us can say this group is more important than this group everybody has their own interests and I think it's important to reflect that um you know there are different factors right the msba project comes with a huge Grant there are lots of process and requirements we have to go through with that whereas with the recal we have a little bit more we have a lot more local control it's entirely local but as staff um we have brought we have sought a a transparent process to bring this forward intellectually honestly with the community other questions yes regard controversy over the gym everyone of us at one of our COA meetings the town clerk Laura JY made a statement that in the future the federal government may not allow voting at any public schools which means in the future we will need a place for GR and if we have a gym and our new center we will have a place I I feel as though we need the you thank you thank you J Karen joun key toown meeting member counc ining as well um I do have this was an excellent presentation in terms of validating the need for for the 16 plus Community it highlighted all the deficiencies and we really you know that that's why we're here we really want to support the 60 plus Community one of the things I'm concerned about though is the expense and what Nancy doctor referred to um I did I did go to the North Andover Senior Center that was recently completed and my understanding is that cost was about 15 million I hate this feedback do you and then um Wilmington I understand is is building a new center as well and my understanding is that's coming in for about 18 million so I'm curious why there seems to be such a discrepancy in terms of the cost for our Senter that's a great question I'll give it to Brian sure uh it's definitely important to compare this project against what other communities are doing that was done initially uh with the some of the recap work and that's something that we will be presenting some updates on as we move forward but what I can tell you is that there really isn't any magic in the numbers um whether you're building a a senior community center in one location or another location the cost per square foot is going to be fairly similar and it's actually not that much different than a school project so it does have to do with the size of the facility um but as you add program space to the facility you also get increased deficiencies so the program that was developed was developed over over a pretty long period of time with the feedback from the different departments and from the community and they they've established that square footage as the base and the Project's cost will be based on that and as I said we we will have some comparisons once we come up with some initial cost to be able to show how that compares to other towns and other communities the comparing total project versus construction cost yes uh Joel was just pointing out so when numbers float around I mean there there's two main numbers that are factored in one is the cost of construction and then the second is the overall project costs and the overall project costs are you know roughly a third more than the construction costs and those include things like all the uh upfront cost for the design team for the project management it includes contingency fees for overruns it includes Furnishings um other owner directed costs so all of that gets rolled into the overall project cost and another very important part um to understand is that costs go up every year and you know when we talked before about are these happening at the same time or should they happen at a different time it's a very good question but the reality is the more a project is put off the higher the price tag comes so that's also important to remember when you're looking at uh projects in and other communities that were built maybe they maybe they're being built now or they were built last year this project won't be built so for a few more years so the cost estimates that are put together factor that in so that there's no surprise once the bids come in and all of a sudden realize well we approve this amount of money but we don't have what it takes to move forward you questions online have questions online Okay um we have Julia Rodriguez online with her hand up um um Julie you can unmute yourself if you want to speak hi sorry no worries um so good nice project um you know 6 3 years old so this obviously would be something that I would be using but what I have heard um is the concern also about Teen space I does this community center not have that built into it so uh currently there's no dedicated teen space But as we've discussed before did I hear correctly teen spaces in teenagers yes okay yes yeah um but as was discussed before is that there would be different programs that would be offered um in the afternoons and evenings that would accommodate other age groups so I can't speak specifically to the programming of those but maybe maybe thank you hi Jen Jenna wood um Community Services director I have a new last name I got married so sometimes I find myself finding my oh thanks everyone um but to the team Point um something that we struggle with in our community holistically is um the middle school and teen age group and offering them a safe space to come offering them opportunities to congregate together maybe stay out of a little bit of trouble um and something that we talked about in our operational plan meeting which was really awesome idea collectively was in that after school time when our senior demographic would go home and then maybe our retired seniors or some other seniors would come back after dinner at 6:00 that between that 3: to 5: p.m. time frame we would go around to each of the middle schools pick up some um kids from the middle schools or the high schools and bring them over to the center to get picked up at around 5 and you can drop in to the billiard's room and there could be some 60 plus guys still playing in there and have those interactions they could go into the gym and um play some pickup basketball but also seniors can be in another portion of the gym still playing pickle ball so we thought that um incorporating that Middle School in teen age group into some of those afternoon activities in a thoughtful not like you know 50 middle schoolers in the building at a time but you know certainly they would pre-register and there'd be maybe 15 to 20 kids in an after school program twice a week that we would oversee directly so um that kind of adds a little bit of character to the the teen space and the Middle School space there other questions online we um we had one comment online um someone say that I think the gym um for the seniors is a very important feature for the facility um the comment was I think the gym is a uh that the gym for the seniors is a very important feature for the maybe more seniors that may be intimidated at the why will utilize this gym and thus be healthier other questions comments see it's 20 minutes to n I'll get the mic to our time thank you if there's no other comments we could we could wrap up tonight I want to thank everybody for coming this kind of feedback is just what we wanted just what we hoped for there were a lot of great questions out there we're taking copious notes so all of your questions will be answered and all your concerns will be dealt with I want just want to say that for the record um also if there are any boards that now have to adjourn from their meetings they can do that now I believe we're wrapping up so U any chairs that have take entertain a motion to adjourn the permanent golden committee all in favor yeah roll call roll sorry Mark yes John Nancy yes Nancy yes Pat yes the Perman ability committee is adjourned um roll call um Rose Marie Nancy Zim John John the select memb still on the call yeah Mark me Mista oh thanks how about I'll make a motion to adjourn second uh okay Melissa yes Chris yes Mark yes thank you okay so that concludes our program GL home safely thanks for coming out I'm