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Welcome to the architects report on the condition of the town buildings, and also some options for this building. If you remember the last time we were here, June 8th of last year, I was a lot of discussion on what to do with this building. Suggestion was made, request was made that we engage an architect's firm to see what would fit in here. A layout and detail of basically from where we are going through the sawtooth section for a senior center, community center, and at least a couple of the town offices,

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and also registrars.

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After that meeting, we put out a request for proposal from architectural firms that were interested.

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We had four or five applied.

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Interviewed them all and chose Antonazi associates.

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They felt they were the best qualify, their experience, best match, what we need.

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Tonight they'll make their report.

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They assess the condition again of our existing town buildings.

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to see how adequate they were for our needs, to see if they're in need of what they need

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as far as repairs, rehabilitation, or major improvements.

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And then they also looked, of course, at this building, what would it cost to put the senior

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center or community center in here, what would it cost to put all the town offices in here,

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would they fit?

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Of course, we knew they would.

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And then tonight they'll present those, their recommendations, their findings.

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With that, I'll turn it over to Paul Lissy, he's the senior partner lead architect on

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this project.

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Paul.

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Thank you, Bob.

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Good evening, everyone.

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Thank you for coming out tonight.

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My name is Paul Lissy.

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I'm one of the principals at Antonazi Associates Architects, and with me tonight, I have Steve

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Henebri.

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He's a project architect that worked on the project with me as well, and I'll introduce

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the other team as we go through.

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Let's turn it on.

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That helps.

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Okay.

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So our agenda for tonight.

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We're going to discuss the process that we went through to get to this point.

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We're going to go over the findings that we came up with and also, and recommendations,

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of course, what we recommend going forward.

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You'll see what, there's some things we feel that are sort of no-brainers, you know, things

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that we should do, things we shouldn't do, so you'll see as we go through how we arrive

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at that.

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And then we'll leave it for questions.

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So as I mentioned, I'm Paul E.C., I was a Principal

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and Project Manager, Steve Henterbury,

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and also on our team, our in-house designer,

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Patty McKeon, she's not here this evening,

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but she was at a big part in the design work

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and the space programming and interviewing of the staff,

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and also our mechanical engineering team from CES,

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and lastly, our structural engineers

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from Michael Horton Associates.

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So those are the, that's the main team that we had in evaluating the buildings, we evaluated them to architectural systems, the plumbing, electrical, mechanical, structural, basically from top to bottom, very, very thorough.

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We won't show you all that in detail, but you'll get a gist of it.

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So, we worked closely with the town, with the first

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equipment, of course, and with Bill, the town planner, and Leon,

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the zoning enforcement officer, and also we interviewed the different

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department heads from all the different facilities.

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So, we got a good sense in speaking with everybody, even custodians,

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just hear everyone's, you know, opinion about the condition of the building,

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and also their space needs, so we'll get into that.

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So it's not just about the physical condition,

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but also the spaces that they're lacking, perhaps.

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So first starting with the process.

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So we did the assessments of the building,

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the physical assessments, and we did the space needs interviews.

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So we actually met with the different department heads.

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We came up with a very detailed list of square footages.

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We looked at what the existing square footages are

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compared to what is really needed, and we documented those differences, and you'll see at the end how we arrived at the different requirements.

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We did some design work, we did a conceptual layout for this building, actually two different layouts for this building, to see if it can work with moving some of the town offices, some of the facilities to this former elementary school.

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And then, of course, we had to put pricing to it.

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We need to know what this is all going to cost, right?

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So, that was the next step.

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And lastly, the options and recommendations.

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So, we did the assessments for the six buildings.

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If you're not aware of it, some of you may be more aware than others.

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But the main town hall building, the old town hall, the community center,

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the senior center, the municipal annex, which is basically the social services facility that most of you are probably familiar with, and then this building as well, okay?

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So those were the six buildings that we assessed for both condition and space needs.

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So we're going to just give you a sense of the different types of items and issues that we found.

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It was nothing really, you know, that was of surprise.

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It's things that you would normally find, right,

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over the years, roofing that needs to be replaced,

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windows, you know, upgrading your lighting fixtures

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to make them energy efficient.

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If you need it, you know, they need a new, you know,

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hot water heaters or more energy efficient mechanical systems.

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So I'm not going to read everything here,

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but just to give you a sense of the sort of items.

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You know, this happens to be the town hall, again, those are the types of improving handicap

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accessibility, appointing masonry, things that you would normally expect, you know, in

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a building of this age, right?

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So nothing really unusual.

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Same thing with the old town hall, which is on the same property, you know, windows, that

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sort of thing, right?

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the community center, so the community center is pretty, it's aged, and it needs some upgrades.

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Just a little bit beyond some of the others. It was an old firehouse, really never been upgraded,

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and so in addition to those components that the roofing and windows, it really does need some

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freshening up, if you might say, beyond the typical, so that's the community center.

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And then the senior center has some unique challenges as well.

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Beyond the typical, beyond the windows and roofing and so forth.

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The issues here are mainly that it's essentially too small of a facility, really, to house all

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the different functions that it needs.

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there's just one main room. There's no way of separating it. There's no spaces for other activities to take place.

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If there's one thing going on, it interrupts other activities.

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Even the director doesn't have an office. Her office is basically in the foyer and in the hallway going out to the second entrance. There's no separate meeting rooms.

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And then lastly, parking is an issue.

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There's hardly any parking on this property.

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And what makes it even worse is there isn't any room for expansion.

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So, you know, so this building along with the community center

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or two of the buildings that certainly are of concern.

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Next, we looked at the social services building

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also known as the municipal annex.

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And again, this one does have similar issues

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issues over the years needs to upgrade, typical roofing, windows sort of thing.

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But one thing that was unique about this one was that you have two floors that you can't

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access without going outdoors.

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You have to go outdoors and either go around the building or go up an exterior stairway.

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So in addition to the standard upgrades, we would propose adding a stairway, an enclosed

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stair tower that you could be able to access both floors.

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And obviously that would, for convenience, but also for,

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well, fire safety is not so much of an issue because you do have two exits from both floors.

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So it's not really about fire safety and building code.

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It's more of, you know, for convenience so you don't have to go outdoors to go from one level to another.

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So that's the municipal annex.

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And then this building, this building we looked at it more as

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a what's called a change of use because I believe we all know that this is not going

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to be a school any longer.

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So with that in mind, we know that the building code and the fire code, once it becomes

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a different use, whether it's housing, whether it's office space, anything other than an educational

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facility. Once you do that, it triggers the codes and you have to bring it up to all

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new standards. So as you can imagine, that's a costly proposition. So I didn't, you know,

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we didn't list everything because it's really substantial to accessibility, even things

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that normally would be waived, you know, would be grandfathered in because it's an existing

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condition that all goes, you know, none of that is acceptable. There's no waivers. Once

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you do a change of use, everything has to be upgraded. So handrails, guardrails, anything

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that's not code compliant to today's code, once you go make that change. So, and of course

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there are those, you know, standard upgrades, windows and so forth as well. So you'll see

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how that is reflected in the cost as we go through.

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So now I want to get into the space needs a little bit.

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So as I mentioned, Paddy McKee and I interviewed the staff,

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the department heads in all the different facilities.

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And I touched on this already a little bit, but so we focused

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on the town hall building and the municipal annex

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and the senior center because the other space wise,

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is the community center is not so much of an issue and also at the old town hall is really

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not an issue of space needs necessarily. But these three buildings, starting with

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the town hall, you know, today they make it work, right? But there's some issues there.

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You have departments where you, you know, to actually years walk in or someone, you know,

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wanting to see the town clerk or whatever it may be.

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In most cases, you're standing out on the hallway

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to have a discussion with folks.

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So, you know, there's issues with that, right?

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There's privacy issues, there's security issues.

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A lot of projects that we're doing,

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renovating town halls, one of the most important things

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is upgrading their spaces for security.

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Tax assessors, town clerk's offices,

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is they want to, you know, they want to have a barrier

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between the public.

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It's an, in many cases, many town halls

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you walk in and you're right into the space

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without any sort of barrier.

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So that's something important.

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And they also need additional storage space.

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There aren't any offices for the custodial staff.

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There's literally two, you know, two toilet rooms.

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So they, you know, they need some additional space.

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Yes, can they make it work?

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They're making it work, but in planning for the future

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and to provide to them what's really required to have them function efficiently for their

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space and safely, we recommend adding additional square footage.

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At the municipal annex, the social services, again, that's so much an issue of space,

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but

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At least the meeting room, there's no place for anyone to meet in that space.

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There's a couple of private offices, but no real meeting room.

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And then that stair tower, I mentioned, right?

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Adding a stair tower so that they can access the building without having to go outside to go from one level to another.

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And then lastly, the senior center, I sort of already mentioned already.

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They have no conference room, they don't have additional spaces.

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It's essentially one big room, so it doesn't function very well as a senior center.

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Okay, so now I'll share with you some of the designs we did for this building, and we

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really did one design for this building.

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The other design I'll show is not really a conceptual design, it's more of a just what

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we call a block plan just to see if square footage wise, you know, everything would fit.

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But this design here, you'll see that it basically is taking the,

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here we go, okay.

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So we're currently in this room here,

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in this multi-purpose room,

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and we are basically proposing that this area,

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there's a kitchen, you know, renovating some of that,

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and becomes the community center, okay?

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And then adjacent to the community center, this area here that you see in gray would be the senior center.

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And so you'd have the senior center and community center in this wing here, right? And then adjacent to that, we have additional two other spaces. These are two spaces that are currently now in a different buildings, not even in any of the buildings we talk about. There's sort of isolated elsewhere in town, and that's the state trooper office and the registrar voters. So I think it makes sense to have them, you know, with some of the other town facilities.

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So this is a design we did for this building showing that we can have a community center,

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a senior center, and state trooper and registrar's office.

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And the rest of the building then would be potentially for other uses.

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Whatever those other uses may be, we're not necessarily here to discuss that,

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but we're just focusing on the town facilities.

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So that's what we're saying we're calling option one.

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This is the lower level, again, no town offices on the lower level.

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Then we have option two.

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So option two is including the same areas we just discussed, the community center,

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the senior center, and the state trooper and register of voters.

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And the rest of this building also would receive all the other offices that we just talked about.

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All the town hall functions, the social services,

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all the different, basically bring everyone here.

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Now obviously doing that, we solve one problem, right?

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And we create another problem,

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because now we'll have five empty buildings instead of one.

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But that's another discussion, right?

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But what we did, this analysis is to determine,

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you'll see here color code, it's just a different department's

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of the community of the Town Hall

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and all the different departments.

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Just to see if they could physically fit in the building.

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And they do, you know, they do fit within the building.

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This is the main level that we're on now.

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And then the lower level has some additional spaces

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and we also would have some additional spaces

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for future growth potentially.

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And this is the gymnasium here.

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And you have some mechanical areas that would not be utilized for programming area.

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So those are the two options that we're calling option one and option two.

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So option two includes option one within that, right?

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So, now looking at the cost estimates for what is being proposed here.

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So looking at strictly the improvements to the five buildings, the town hall, the old

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Town Hall, the Community Center, Senior Center, and the Municipal Annex Social Services.

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We're looking at nearly $4 million in total costs.

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Now that includes escalation over time, right?

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There needs to be time to design the improvements, to bid it out.

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00:18:10,010 --> 00:18:13,810
So you're looking at, you know, at a minimum, probably a year away.

228
00:18:13,810 --> 00:18:26,730
So we're anticipating, you know, cost increases, of course, it also includes contingency because there are no designs for this, so there's a design contingency, and then of course a construction contingency.

229
00:18:27,250 --> 00:18:30,690
So, you know, these are fairly conservative numbers.

230
00:18:31,170 --> 00:18:39,890
So this is simply to take care of those items that we talked about that are your typical improvements, right?

231
00:18:40,850 --> 00:18:48,370
If you look at each building individually, they're not huge dollars, but they do add up, right?

232
00:18:48,430 --> 00:18:50,930
We're talking about five different buildings here.

233
00:18:52,290 --> 00:18:56,050
So that's the cost for improving the five buildings.

234
00:18:57,410 --> 00:19:00,810
Now, we also looked at the additions, right?

235
00:19:01,010 --> 00:19:01,850
The proposed additions,

236
00:19:03,900 --> 00:19:09,700
if we improve the buildings and we added onto the buildings as we discussed,

237
00:19:10,460 --> 00:19:15,320
that would be an additional, roughly $6 million.

238
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:24,280
Okay, now we talked about the senior center not having really not having land for expansion, right?

239
00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:33,600
But we wanted to include this analysis to show you what the cost would be to improve all these buildings.

240
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So

241
00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:42,360
these are two cost breakdowns here for the different scenarios.

242
00:19:49,250 --> 00:19:53,550
So here are the options now that we've looked at, right, in summary.

243
00:19:54,990 --> 00:20:03,350
So option one is basically moving the community center, senior center, registered voters, and

244
00:20:03,350 --> 00:20:09,150
state trooper to this building at $9.5 million.

245
00:20:10,670 --> 00:20:15,930
That's the cause for this building to just move those folks here.

246
00:20:17,890 --> 00:20:22,910
Then, if we looked at moving all the town departments that is building,

247
00:20:23,310 --> 00:20:28,390
and if you recall earlier I mentioned, that's a change of use so that triggers a lot more work.

248
00:20:28,550 --> 00:20:33,230
It's not just making alterations to the building to just fit everyone in here,

249
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make it so it's laid out properly, it goes way beyond that.

250
00:20:38,290 --> 00:20:41,370
So, you're looking at nearly $32 million for something like that.

251
00:20:42,890 --> 00:20:50,890
And then lastly, we looked at just renovating the existing buildings and expanding.

252
00:20:51,110 --> 00:20:54,110
And that's the number you saw earlier, the 9.8 million.

253
00:20:56,240 --> 00:21:04,820
So those are the three options that you have, that we looked at that seem to make sense.

254
00:21:04,820 --> 00:21:13,250
So, then, now we're going to suggest, we're going to make some recommendations based on our findings.

255
00:21:15,310 --> 00:21:22,690
We're recommending that to move all the town departments here just is not practical.

256
00:21:23,370 --> 00:21:27,190
As I mentioned, it's very costly for one, nearly $32 million.

257
00:21:28,630 --> 00:21:33,870
And then you end up with five empty buildings that you need to do something with.

258
00:21:33,870 --> 00:21:41,930
right? So we're not recommending option two. We're recommending definitely option one which

259
00:21:41,930 --> 00:21:48,110
is moving the senior center, community center here and along with that either a 3a, 3b and 3c,

260
00:21:48,370 --> 00:21:58,090
right? So the 3a, 3a is moving everyone here and renovating the other buildings. 3b is moving

261
00:21:58,090 --> 00:22:05,870
moving a community center and senior center here and renovating and adding on to the other buildings.

262
00:22:07,590 --> 00:22:18,210
Or option, I'm sorry, recommendation one and three C, which is just moving everyone here and not doing anything to the other buildings.

263
00:22:19,050 --> 00:22:27,010
So we're not, we're not recommending any one specific, but we're near, we narrowed it down to this, to these.

264
00:22:27,650 --> 00:22:29,610
We're basically sort of by process of elimination.

265
00:22:30,110 --> 00:22:35,890
We're saying that moving all the departments here is unrealistic and has its own issues.

266
00:22:38,820 --> 00:22:48,460
But we do recommend moving community center, a senior center here because of the challenges that there would be in renovating and expanding those buildings.

267
00:22:51,510 --> 00:22:55,750
So that basically concludes our presentation.

268
00:22:56,810 --> 00:23:02,230
I know Bob, if you wanted to add anything at this point, I don't want to add.

269
00:23:02,350 --> 00:23:05,510
If you're going to open it for questions, if you have questions, please step up to the microphone.

270
00:23:07,090 --> 00:23:07,630
Thank you.

271
00:23:11,450 --> 00:23:13,230
Suggesting you go up to the microphone for questions.

272
00:23:13,510 --> 00:23:13,530
Yep.

273
00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:20,240
I think it's a great presentation and thank you.

274
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:22,080
I'm sorry.

275
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:23,460
It's just on.

276
00:23:38,910 --> 00:23:45,990
My only question was, it's a little hard to look at this without understanding what

277
00:23:45,990 --> 00:23:59,250
you could recoup if you decided to sell the buildings.

278
00:24:00,450 --> 00:24:04,410
Then we have empty buildings, the question is, are the empty buildings worth anything?

279
00:24:05,110 --> 00:24:07,710
And therefore, what is the net cost for the town?

280
00:24:08,090 --> 00:24:12,390
And I think that's one of those things in order that really have a balance to view.

281
00:24:13,330 --> 00:24:16,010
I think these are great, you guys have done a lot of great work.

282
00:24:16,610 --> 00:24:21,330
But in order to really have a comparison, you kind of have to look at saying, okay,

283
00:24:21,690 --> 00:24:26,670
we move everything here, we spend a lot of money here, we don't do anything, we sell them.

284
00:24:27,210 --> 00:24:33,130
We move some things here, we sell some things, we keep some things there, we sell some of

285
00:24:33,130 --> 00:24:35,530
those things, net, net, what's the thing?

286
00:24:35,810 --> 00:24:46,030
So the all I'm just saying is I think that would be a good, absolutely, we didn't obviously

287
00:24:46,030 --> 00:24:52,310
take it to that level because that requires other, you know, doing, you know, a good work.

288
00:24:52,530 --> 00:24:52,710
Thank you.

289
00:24:52,710 --> 00:24:54,030
Thank you.

290
00:24:55,070 --> 00:25:09,290
One of my questions was posed by this gentleman right here, and then my next question, maybe Mr. McGarry can answer, what is the current staffing and use of the large building such as the public annex? How many people are in there on a daily basis, staff wise?

291
00:25:10,910 --> 00:25:21,410
the municipal annex has the clothing locker on the second floor there are a couple of volunteers there whenever it's opened the first floor and social services at social services director

292
00:25:22,070 --> 00:25:27,550
Becky I know you're here an assistant for her you know I'm missing anybody they're

293
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:42,900
they're shown on the plan for what ones it could be moved in here but the last time we talked I talked to them they're happy with where they are on the

294
00:25:42,900 --> 00:25:44,300
plan they're down on the lower level.

295
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:45,700
No, where are they currently?

296
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:47,060
Where are they currently?

297
00:25:47,260 --> 00:25:48,200
They're in the white building.

298
00:25:48,780 --> 00:25:50,700
Park and Rec, I think, is still in the white building.

299
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:52,800
Youth and family services has a lot of space

300
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:53,600
in the middle school.

301
00:25:56,780 --> 00:25:58,680
And I'll just throw out one thing.

302
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:02,220
If they keep that, we don't want to move,

303
00:26:02,820 --> 00:26:05,620
I've already asked Paul, this is not materially effect

304
00:26:06,120 --> 00:26:08,140
the total renovation costs for this building.

305
00:26:08,580 --> 00:26:10,980
Because the big costs are systems and up the code,

306
00:26:10,980 --> 00:26:14,100
It's not remodeling a certain space for a certain office.

307
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:19,940
No, I understand, but community center, right, what's the staffing there?

308
00:26:20,340 --> 00:26:28,640
There is no staff, it's a room space that's open for use and senior center currently.

309
00:26:29,140 --> 00:26:32,540
Senior center has the director and when they're open, obviously staff.

310
00:26:33,060 --> 00:26:37,280
So my theory is to go along with the sale, the recruitment of sales,

311
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:43,680
What's the savings and consolidation of many office buildings throughout the town and operational costs?

312
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:47,600
Heat electricity, lights, power, all that.

313
00:26:48,220 --> 00:26:54,540
We have a lot of buildings and in this current climate and most of you on Facebook have heard my pitch.

314
00:26:55,140 --> 00:27:00,620
In this current climate, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, independent, everybody has a niche about something.

315
00:27:00,620 --> 00:27:07,920
I think it would be best if we move our town as a whole to this center and we get everybody in the public eye and under one

316
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:16,220
roof regardless of the clause. We're going to have to spend money to update this town. Mr. Warner gave a presentation at the middle school about bringing we're not going to get

317
00:27:16,220 --> 00:27:22,600
business into this town unless we bring life into this town and the way to get life into this town is have our elected officials that work for us here in this town.

318
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:30,080
When you walk in and they like they see you there's no place to hide up on field park drive. There's no people scattered throughout town bring them

319
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:30,440
here.

320
00:27:42,620 --> 00:27:46,840
If you only bring half of, you only use half of this building as you, one of the

321
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:52,140
options are, I assume the other half then would be, have to be open to a developer or

322
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:57,780
it would, it would just sit empty or. We've got a couple of proposals to present next

323
00:27:57,780 --> 00:28:02,240
week when we have the, when we have the meeting over at the high school. But yeah, that, we

324
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:08,320
just ask them with fill these spots, see if all the offices would fit here including youth

325
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:12,620
and family and HK RAC, they all do, but not designate.

326
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:19,320
If all we use is the wing we're in now basically, we can decide what else we might want to do with the rest of the wing.

327
00:28:19,500 --> 00:28:26,660
We might want to fail off a commercial use, we might want to, there's been a number of ideas floated, we didn't ask them to identify those.

328
00:28:26,820 --> 00:28:32,400
Second question is, I think we got a $7 million grant from the state for this building.

329
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:39,460
Correct. What restrictions or requirements of the town does that put on us for using that money?

330
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:45,460
Well, that grant, and we'll talk about this in detail next week as well. It's a $4.5 million grant.

331
00:28:46,100 --> 00:28:54,240
It was submitted as a community challenge grant to put senior housing here, the wing that we're in as Paul has described,

332
00:28:54,860 --> 00:28:59,640
and a couple of other improvements to their property and sidewalk to the center.

333
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:00,560
this

334
00:29:03,500 --> 00:29:07,740
is a little intimidating because I know HKTV might be here and I just

335
00:29:07,740 --> 00:29:22,160
wanted you can't hear me oh my goodness okay well I just wanted to say that I'm sure a lot of

336
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:28,540
you went to elementary school here you as most of you are part of the community I'm new here only in the

337
00:29:28,540 --> 00:29:36,040
past couple of years. That being said, I know that this is a strong community and that

338
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:40,320
there are a lot of folks in town that have different skills and talents.

339
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:48,000
And my question is, as part of this proposition, are any of the folks that work here in town,

340
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:54,600
like contractors, other people, like, is there input or even services going to be employed

341
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:59,440
with building that like if we're having a community center and we're having like a town center.

342
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:29,940
In the folks that live here and have businesses here contribute to bringing this town center back to a usable center. I guess is my question. $32 million. I know maybe that's to some people not a lot of money, but to me that's a heck of a lot of money. If I had a million dollars, I would be very happy right now. And when I hear that, I acknowledge that it probably would cost that much.

343
00:30:29,940 --> 00:30:36,400
to make a building like beautiful and modern and all those things but and then I'll get I'll

344
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:42,020
sit back down but I was wondering what are the bare costs to get this building usable and could

345
00:30:42,020 --> 00:30:47,580
we have a stage plan where you know maybe five years from now we we can already all those buildings

346
00:30:47,580 --> 00:30:53,560
here but in the meantime you know we get some paint on the walls we make sure the heating you guys

347
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:59,680
all know the heating system here is horrible we probably spend like a fortune on oil every single

348
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:07,140
What are the minimum costs to make this building workable for the folks who want to use it now?

349
00:31:08,180 --> 00:31:08,320
Anyway.

350
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:10,080
Yeah, we didn't look at that.

351
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:14,880
We looked at obviously the senior center and community center being moved here.

352
00:31:16,380 --> 00:31:21,060
And then, yeah, if you're looking basically just to make those minimal improvements,

353
00:31:22,100 --> 00:31:24,300
we haven't looked at it to that detail.

354
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:27,960
So it would be somewhere between the 10 million and the 30 million.

355
00:31:28,180 --> 00:31:34,080
I'm sure everyone who is old home here, when you get somebody to try to improve your house or maybe you want to remodel your kitchen,

356
00:31:34,460 --> 00:31:37,500
they say, oh, you can have these knobs, you can have these designs.

357
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:37,800
Right.

358
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:43,800
But then you end up looking at the Excel spreadsheet, taking out your Sharpie and being like, well, we can't afford that now, maybe later.

359
00:31:44,980 --> 00:31:49,880
I guess, is there any way of bringing that 32 million down to a more reasonable amount?

360
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:52,980
Not to say it's not reasonable, because I know that.

361
00:31:52,980 --> 00:31:59,060
Yeah, well, I mean, again, that's, that number is to move everyone here, right, to move all the departments here.

362
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:07,620
So, yeah, there's obviously some, you know, middle ground, right, potentially.

363
00:32:08,300 --> 00:32:16,100
I've got kind of a concern. We got $32 million here. I spoke with the superintendent of schools last week.

364
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:21,120
They're talking a hundred million dollar renovation program or a new school.

365
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:23,340
I don't know if everybody's aware of that here or not.

366
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:25,200
I wasn't.

367
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:29,860
That kind of took me, you know, a hundred million.

368
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:31,940
Now we got the Rossite property down there.

369
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:33,600
We need a town garage.

370
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:37,300
How many more million dollars before we go broke here?

371
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:39,840
I think we should be careful, folks.

372
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:41,840
I really do.

373
00:32:43,060 --> 00:32:44,520
Everybody complains about taxes.

374
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:45,680
this isn't lowering them

375
00:32:51,020 --> 00:32:57,040
I'm not sure if this reaches

376
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:03,760
Oh I don't think

377
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:09,900
Thank you for your work I have a question about the old town hall

378
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:15,780
over $8,000 and that building the old brain very candy

379
00:33:15,780 --> 00:33:16,820
what kind of work

380
00:33:18,020 --> 00:33:26,920
No, I believe that was for the existing town hall not the old town hall I believe I believe let me let me go back to that slide

381
00:33:55,300 --> 00:34:00,620
I do do we have ownership of the building or to spend that kind of money or just wanting

382
00:34:00,620 --> 00:34:05,620
out how that was how the course was working down on that.

383
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:11,820
I get your sense of the ownership question the ownership of that building is split between

384
00:34:11,820 --> 00:34:18,220
the town and the nations and it's not split by floor it's I've not read the deed or what

385
00:34:18,220 --> 00:34:21,460
have been told is every square inch, half of it is ours, half of it is the

386
00:34:21,460 --> 00:34:25,660
masons, we're on the hook for maintaining the whole building. The good news is

387
00:34:25,660 --> 00:34:30,460
that million dollar figure, you can probably drop off about $40,000 because we're

388
00:34:30,460 --> 00:34:34,180
redoing the first floor windows right now. And for those of you who are wondering what

389
00:34:34,180 --> 00:34:39,340
was going on, that's what's happening with that up at the old town hall now.

390
00:34:43,740 --> 00:34:58,440
We're dealing with the jail, the state transferred the jail health property to us and that included obviously the jail all the way up to the recreation facility, 20 or 30 acres on the other side of the road.

391
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:07,800
The restriction in the deed is if any of that property is used for other than recreational or non municipal uses, the state gets it all back.

392
00:35:09,660 --> 00:35:23,540
So we are, we're stuck with the real estate underneath the annex, that doesn't mean we can't knock it down, it doesn't mean we can't approve it, but we can't, as some of us thought initially carve out a lot there and sell it.

393
00:35:24,340 --> 00:35:32,940
The senior center is different, we can sell the senior center, and the town office building is different, we can sell that off.

394
00:35:35,180 --> 00:35:42,660
community centers impacted by the waiting event there and parking that might be a problem.

395
00:35:44,380 --> 00:35:50,480
I mean, we can reutilize some of the buildings and we can sell some of them like the town office building.

396
00:35:51,240 --> 00:35:54,000
There's no market right now for office space anywhere.

397
00:35:54,720 --> 00:35:58,740
You may have seen the article in the criminal couple of weeks ago, maybe about a month ago,

398
00:35:58,740 --> 00:36:05,220
So they're expecting a 37% vacancy rate in office space in Hartford, which is I believe

399
00:36:05,220 --> 00:36:06,060
a record for them.

400
00:36:11,010 --> 00:36:12,670
Bob, I just wanted to, I don't know, I need a mic.

401
00:36:12,870 --> 00:36:14,190
Yeah, for two reasons.

402
00:36:14,390 --> 00:36:15,330
One is being recorded.

403
00:36:15,510 --> 00:36:18,570
That's this mic and the other ones will people can hear.

404
00:36:19,130 --> 00:36:22,410
I just wanted to clarify Bob, oh, two mics, okay.

405
00:36:24,890 --> 00:36:31,750
I wanted to clarify what you said about the space for youth and family services and HK

406
00:36:31,750 --> 00:36:37,050
I wasn't totally sure what you said and you mentioned something about us having office space at the middle school, which we don't okay

407
00:36:37,050 --> 00:36:38,730
Youth and Family Services doesn't have space there

408
00:36:39,410 --> 00:36:41,290
So I wasn't sure what you space

409
00:36:41,290 --> 00:36:48,750
Space is available here, and that's all built into the cost if you want to oh

410
00:36:48,750 --> 00:36:54,350
So I thought when I I thought when I saw the map of the first floor we were you were saying

411
00:36:54,910 --> 00:36:57,410
Senior Center Community Center Police

412
00:36:57,410 --> 00:36:59,010
register our voters.

413
00:36:59,350 --> 00:37:01,430
That is a baseline option.

414
00:37:02,730 --> 00:37:06,270
Then the option two included moving all the town offices here.

415
00:37:07,070 --> 00:37:10,870
In option two spaces there for HK Rec and Youth and Family.

416
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,760
Did you say, under some conditions,

417
00:37:25,500 --> 00:37:28,600
the state could get the old jail back?

418
00:37:29,380 --> 00:37:29,540
Yes.

419
00:37:30,140 --> 00:37:30,360
Good.

420
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,860
I've been accused of calling that building a white elephant.

421
00:37:35,860 --> 00:37:39,660
I will deny that, but I will agree with the sentiment.

422
00:37:40,380 --> 00:37:44,140
But that said, it's all the property goes back, and that includes a jail,

423
00:37:44,240 --> 00:37:49,040
ill-recreation fields where the ball fields are.

424
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:15,440
So, yeah, as the first person, I guess it was Tim, that said, I was a little confused with the comparison.

425
00:38:16,780 --> 00:38:23,600
So, if we don't move the, so we either end up with a few bank-banking buildings,

426
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:26,640
or we end up vacant back here, that's what it is.

427
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:32,740
So to just say, if, you know, it's not that we only end up with vacant buildings if we move everything here.

428
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:35,860
It's if we don't move them, then we end up with vacancy at AGF.

429
00:38:35,900 --> 00:38:42,460
Right, I mentioned one versus five right now, yeah, one building here versus five other buildings, right?

430
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:51,840
Would you say that having all town services in one building long-term would be cost saving in terms of maintenance and repairs rather than fact building?

431
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:53,860
Yeah, there's pros and cons to every, right?

432
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:57,480
And would the, again, that number is,

433
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:00,160
you know, it's the mind-boggling, wherever it is,

434
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,120
30,000, 30,000, yeah.

435
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:04,400
We're getting a deal, it sounds like,

436
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:06,360
with the schools, what they're spending.

437
00:39:06,740 --> 00:39:10,380
But I'm one, one, two, three, four, five, four.

438
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,180
But will you be making your report available

439
00:39:13,180 --> 00:39:13,860
to the public?

440
00:39:14,060 --> 00:39:14,940
Will this be made available?

441
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,660
And will there be a breakdown, a general view?

442
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:20,320
To see how you can get a number?

443
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:22,200
Yes, we do have the detail cost.

444
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,660
I just clearly it's hundreds of pages.

445
00:39:24,980 --> 00:39:25,380
Yeah.

446
00:39:25,940 --> 00:39:26,740
Yes, absolutely.

447
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:28,620
Yeah, we've made that available.

448
00:39:29,780 --> 00:39:32,180
So, and I also did you think of,

449
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:37,340
I mean, I guess use is like for town hall that seems,

450
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:39,240
maybe not offices is not the best,

451
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:40,120
but maybe housing.

452
00:39:40,820 --> 00:39:42,200
And there's a need for housing in our town.

453
00:39:42,380 --> 00:39:44,340
So had you considered how some of these uses

454
00:39:44,340 --> 00:39:46,380
that we vacate might be used, or is that not part of it?

455
00:39:46,380 --> 00:39:47,900
We didn't go to that level.

456
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:02,460
I hope

457
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,260
nobody brought any stones in here.

458
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:21,520
Let me get out of the way before you talk, please.

459
00:40:22,220 --> 00:40:24,020
I have enough problems right now.

460
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:29,720
Okay, so I went here, my daughter went here, my younger son went here.

461
00:40:31,300 --> 00:40:34,120
They're both in their 40s now.

462
00:40:35,740 --> 00:40:36,300
I

463
00:40:38,830 --> 00:40:48,510
hate to put it this way, but I didn't see any figures for what it would cost to raise this building.

464
00:40:49,450 --> 00:40:50,950
And I don't mean lift it up.

465
00:40:54,110 --> 00:40:57,990
I mean, there would be no building here at the end of the process.

466
00:40:59,450 --> 00:41:00,670
Yeah, no, we didn't look at that.

467
00:41:00,790 --> 00:41:06,990
Because the cost of renovating it and bringing it up to code, I can just imagine.

468
00:41:06,990 --> 00:41:17,250
I mean nobody knows is there asbestos in here, is there lead in here, I'm sure there is.

469
00:41:18,150 --> 00:41:30,830
So to have all of that abated and the new roof, because it's going to be intense to bring

470
00:41:30,830 --> 00:41:39,890
up in the electrical and the heating. I mean all those costs are just going to add up and up and up.

471
00:41:41,170 --> 00:41:57,520
And as I say, I hate to think of it but I think it should be looked at. It's never been seen as a possibility in any of these figures.

472
00:41:59,220 --> 00:42:17,900
And I think somebody should work up a cost at that point so that we can make an informed decision as to as much as I hate it, but I'm sure this is not popular.

473
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:21,460
That's why I said did anybody bring any stones in here?

474
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:23,040
Yes.

475
00:42:26,950 --> 00:42:28,310
HGS would be a memory.

476
00:42:30,370 --> 00:42:31,250
Thank you.

477
00:42:32,870 --> 00:42:33,310
Careful.

478
00:42:33,730 --> 00:42:33,790
Yes.

479
00:42:44,890 --> 00:42:45,270
There you go.

480
00:42:46,590 --> 00:42:47,950
I just, just a clarification.

481
00:42:48,190 --> 00:42:50,990
So the full report has all the estimate in it

482
00:42:50,990 --> 00:42:52,250
more than just one page.

483
00:42:52,370 --> 00:42:52,650
You're saying?

484
00:42:52,850 --> 00:42:53,290
Yes.

485
00:42:53,650 --> 00:42:55,370
Does it also have the detailed program?

486
00:42:55,730 --> 00:42:57,010
So all the extension components?

487
00:42:57,270 --> 00:42:57,390
Okay.

488
00:42:57,590 --> 00:42:59,850
So we will, we'll see that when it comes up.

489
00:43:00,570 --> 00:43:02,970
I know 30 millions a lot for a lot of people.

490
00:43:03,510 --> 00:43:10,210
But just a reminder, it's not really $30 million because you're spending $10 million to the same to the spaces we have.

491
00:43:10,650 --> 00:43:19,530
So, think of it more like $20 million. That's still a lot of money, but just in perspective, you're either doing $10 million or you're doing $30 million.

492
00:43:21,190 --> 00:43:22,250
Right, thank you.

493
00:43:35,390 --> 00:43:39,910
My feeling is your option number two is the best.

494
00:43:39,910 --> 00:43:45,610
this. Having all your offices in the town in one location is vital.

495
00:43:47,790 --> 00:43:48,390
Right now they're

496
00:43:48,390 --> 00:43:51,950
scattered throughout the town. There's other offices too that could be moved here.

497
00:43:54,070 --> 00:44:00,450
And long term, there is, as somebody pointed out, savings along with maintaining one facility

498
00:44:00,450 --> 00:44:08,190
versus six facilities. Getting the troopers in the center of town is vital. If anybody

499
00:44:08,190 --> 00:44:12,390
is going to use tatham. They did this exact same thing with their elementary school there.

500
00:44:13,230 --> 00:44:19,290
That building is alive and there's people going in and out of it all day long and all night long.

501
00:44:19,910 --> 00:44:25,110
They have meeting rooms there for all the different groups in town to use.

502
00:44:26,790 --> 00:44:31,730
The gymnasium is open. You probably go there. Now there's kids playing in that gymnasium.

503
00:44:32,910 --> 00:44:37,170
So you have all those people coming there during the day, during the night. We're trying to

504
00:44:37,170 --> 00:44:41,050
revitalize Higginham Center. All those people will be driving through Higginham Center.

505
00:44:41,210 --> 00:44:47,190
Going to the restaurants, going to the market, going to all the new facilities we're talking about building down here.

506
00:44:48,050 --> 00:44:54,690
Yes, it's $32 million. We're talking about a long-term investment.

507
00:44:55,010 --> 00:44:59,790
This isn't going to be paid off over five years. They would bond this and I don't even know how.

508
00:45:00,110 --> 00:45:17,770
We can go out for it, but this is a long-term project, and you would get money back from getting rid of the other buildings. I'm not going to say it's going to be very much, but it would be vital to the revitalization of Higgins Center. And that's my thought. Thank you. Thank you.

509
00:45:47,050 --> 00:45:50,750
So how much per square footage is your renovation going to be?

510
00:45:51,530 --> 00:45:55,310
It's in the five to six hundred dollars per square foot.

511
00:45:56,570 --> 00:45:59,850
That could be, no, I don't believe it's.

512
00:46:00,290 --> 00:46:02,730
Do you want it to do the math first?

513
00:46:05,430 --> 00:46:08,890
It might be 49 if you gross.

514
00:46:09,230 --> 00:46:10,950
It might be 49,000 square feet gross.

515
00:46:11,590 --> 00:46:19,190
49. No, it's it's either 39 or it's total 40,000. That's with everything. But in terms of

516
00:46:19,190 --> 00:46:23,990
usual space, I think it's less than 40,000. Yeah, I'm not sure I'll talk about my head, but yeah,

517
00:46:24,050 --> 00:46:36,070
the 4,000 square. 44. 44. How much average. Yeah. The point is square foot cost or. So, yeah,

518
00:46:36,070 --> 00:46:36,830
I don't think they're 800.

519
00:46:37,350 --> 00:46:38,090
I got 800.

520
00:46:39,330 --> 00:46:42,730
So the point is, if we're going to get a renovation

521
00:46:42,730 --> 00:46:47,130
on our house, do we go with, if someone comes in and says,

522
00:46:47,210 --> 00:46:51,770
hey, you can't do this, because it's going to be $500,000.

523
00:46:52,550 --> 00:46:53,910
Liz was out in shoes on architects.

524
00:46:54,190 --> 00:46:56,010
She knows you probably get a few estimates.

525
00:46:56,370 --> 00:46:58,710
So your estimate is one estimate.

526
00:46:59,190 --> 00:47:00,770
Are there other architectural firms that

527
00:47:00,770 --> 00:47:02,010
might come back with a different estimate?

528
00:47:02,750 --> 00:47:03,950
Yeah, well, I'm not estimate.

529
00:47:04,130 --> 00:47:05,730
I'm not, you know, the contractor, right?

530
00:47:06,390 --> 00:47:13,630
We're showing a budget, we don't know, we didn't do a design, it's a conceptual budget.

531
00:47:16,870 --> 00:47:21,190
But it's a high number so it's kind of a sticker shop number.

532
00:47:21,810 --> 00:47:28,890
The cost to do renovations on public buildings are in that range in the $600.

533
00:47:28,890 --> 00:47:35,030
$400. East Canada was about $400. East Canada was about $400, so it was about $400.

534
00:47:36,030 --> 00:47:41,270
Yeah, it was about $200, $2018. Yeah, yeah.

535
00:47:41,270 --> 00:47:45,710
You might want to look at the document. You can stand here for that.

536
00:47:46,570 --> 00:47:50,330
Here is what I would say, if anyone wants to seriously change the challenge in numbers,

537
00:47:51,210 --> 00:47:55,570
work with me on the website, go hire an architectural firm and an engineering firm

538
00:47:55,570 --> 00:47:59,230
or find your buddy to have the credentials and come back with a number.

539
00:47:59,790 --> 00:48:04,370
I'm sure we can get different numbers and that's fine, but this is the one we've paid for.

540
00:48:05,010 --> 00:48:09,030
So Eric, if you want to find someone to come up with a different set of numbers, by all means, please do.

541
00:48:09,370 --> 00:48:12,730
I'm sorry, just to clear, but that's the project cost, not just the construction cost.

542
00:48:13,130 --> 00:48:15,490
Okay, so that includes all the fees and all that.

543
00:48:16,290 --> 00:48:23,930
Do we, in terms of bidders for the senior housing?

544
00:48:24,410 --> 00:48:25,470
Have we put that out to bid?

545
00:48:26,390 --> 00:48:29,370
We've put it out as a proposal, yes, and I will be discussed next week.

546
00:48:29,630 --> 00:48:31,430
Oh, and we have, we have some bidders for that.

547
00:48:31,930 --> 00:48:32,470
And we picked anyone.

548
00:48:32,630 --> 00:48:33,610
We discussed next week.

549
00:48:33,850 --> 00:48:34,090
Okay.

550
00:48:34,790 --> 00:48:36,030
But have we picked this?

551
00:48:36,530 --> 00:48:38,370
And we'll be discussed next week.

552
00:48:38,850 --> 00:48:43,810
If bidders are picked, that's if that's public information, isn't it?

553
00:48:43,810 --> 00:48:45,050
I wish she never knew that.

554
00:48:45,350 --> 00:48:45,590
Yes.

555
00:48:45,970 --> 00:48:46,210
That is.

556
00:48:47,230 --> 00:48:47,650
Next week.

557
00:48:48,270 --> 00:48:49,150
Next week.

558
00:48:49,730 --> 00:48:49,970
Okay.

559
00:48:50,230 --> 00:48:51,870
So come out next week.

560
00:48:52,170 --> 00:48:52,610
The future.

561
00:48:52,970 --> 00:48:54,890
If you want to have any question, I want it's coming out.

562
00:48:55,690 --> 00:48:56,130
Next week.

563
00:48:57,210 --> 00:48:57,650
Okay.

564
00:48:58,010 --> 00:48:58,370
Okay.

565
00:48:58,730 --> 00:48:59,010
That's it.

566
00:48:59,110 --> 00:48:59,390
That's it.

567
00:48:59,690 --> 00:49:00,210
Thank you, sir.

568
00:49:00,750 --> 00:49:01,970
So yeah, it's a private class.

569
00:49:02,190 --> 00:49:02,890
Not a private class.

570
00:49:03,190 --> 00:49:03,630
The numbers.

571
00:49:05,170 --> 00:49:05,430
Okay.

572
00:49:05,970 --> 00:49:06,110
Um.

573
00:49:06,970 --> 00:49:08,150
Hey, we're new residents.

574
00:49:09,110 --> 00:49:09,430
Oh.

575
00:49:13,950 --> 00:49:26,110
Well, I know I just feel safe and happy here, you know, so my just, first of all, really,

576
00:49:26,430 --> 00:49:30,390
we have an incredible area here, there's no doubt about it.

577
00:49:31,310 --> 00:49:39,010
The coyote blue was it, and the road runner, you know, we got to play this up, got to do

578
00:49:39,010 --> 00:49:46,010
something exciting about that. My real point is, you know, we're from out of

579
00:49:46,010 --> 00:49:51,850
state. We don't know anything about anything. And we're excited to be here. But I

580
00:49:51,850 --> 00:49:58,290
think the reason is that the area is beautiful. There's such records,

581
00:49:58,330 --> 00:50:04,830
opportunities, the schools, holy cow. I mean, this is a great area. And so I think

582
00:50:04,830 --> 00:50:06,330
I think it's worthy of investment.

583
00:50:06,610 --> 00:50:08,530
I just don't know what to invest in,

584
00:50:08,710 --> 00:50:10,770
so all y'all are gonna have to figure that out.

585
00:50:11,230 --> 00:50:17,290
My real question goes back to the 2018-2019 town hall

586
00:50:17,290 --> 00:50:21,090
three-day meeting that I was reading that on the web.

587
00:50:21,310 --> 00:50:23,470
It was really interesting where people got together.

588
00:50:24,230 --> 00:50:29,130
And is this an alignment with the prior consultation

589
00:50:30,870 --> 00:50:31,390
recommendations?

590
00:50:31,390 --> 00:50:38,210
Is it in alignment with what the community spent days coming to look at?

591
00:50:42,530 --> 00:50:43,310
That's for you, Bob.

592
00:50:45,710 --> 00:50:47,250
First of all, ma'am, welcome to town.

593
00:50:47,970 --> 00:50:48,730
Let me give you a moment here.

594
00:50:52,940 --> 00:50:56,440
Secondly, the event you were talking about actually was held here in this room.

595
00:50:56,980 --> 00:51:00,160
And at least the first day, I was here only for the first day, there were three.

596
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:04,480
It was a stretch of the Higginham Center Visioning Study.

597
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:08,300
It did include some recommendations for this particular building.

598
00:51:08,820 --> 00:51:11,020
We have explored most of them to this point.

599
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:24,160
I can't say off the top of my head all because it was a 90 or so total recommendations in that study covering again all of Hayden Center here, the Rossi property down Route 81.

600
00:51:24,860 --> 00:51:26,200
So yeah, those are being incorporated.

601
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:32,480
There was not that study didn't get terribly specific on what to do with the building.

602
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:40,100
It was it was a visioning study it was a long higher level, but that's awesome on our website to Hageno vision visioning study

603
00:51:40,100 --> 00:51:42,200
You're welcome to look at it

604
00:51:46,810 --> 00:51:47,550
sure

605
00:51:51,630 --> 00:51:52,130
so

606
00:51:52,130 --> 00:51:53,370
what we

607
00:51:58,610 --> 00:52:04,130
We did another meeting that you should look at because there was a meeting here that was standing room only last June

608
00:52:04,130 --> 00:52:06,670
And it was pretty incredible because there were maybe

609
00:52:06,670 --> 00:52:11,790
250 people here and the amazing thing was they spoke with one voice, like someone would

610
00:52:11,790 --> 00:52:15,790
say something and the next person would build on it, it was a beautiful, one of the best

611
00:52:15,790 --> 00:52:20,610
experiences in my 30, almost 30 years in Vietnam. So look for that one too, I don't know what

612
00:52:20,610 --> 00:52:26,430
it was called visually. It's a June 8 meeting. It was like a public hearing. It's on the

613
00:52:26,430 --> 00:52:32,710
website. Yeah, so look at that one. But what was said at that meeting was fix all the

614
00:52:32,710 --> 00:52:37,190
roofs, don't sell the building, don't put the housing in back, put everything in town hall

615
00:52:37,190 --> 00:52:38,610
and here let's create a civic center.

616
00:52:38,770 --> 00:52:44,290
So that was really cool and I'm turning total blankets to what I really want to say.

617
00:52:44,550 --> 00:52:47,410
I know what I'm going to say.

618
00:52:47,810 --> 00:52:52,990
So at that meeting, like a lot of the conversation was about the exterior space and there were

619
00:52:52,990 --> 00:52:57,270
questions in terms of, you know, if the housing went in there, how would the parking work

620
00:52:57,270 --> 00:53:02,690
for that with people coming in to use the playground or using, are you familiar with

621
00:53:02,690 --> 00:53:08,370
with that study and because I had hoped that this was going to be not only space building

622
00:53:08,370 --> 00:53:11,350
space utilization but also site because that's so important.

623
00:53:11,650 --> 00:53:12,150
Yes, it is.

624
00:53:12,370 --> 00:53:17,030
In fact, I believe there's some work, some design work going on at this time, is that correct

625
00:53:17,030 --> 00:53:17,210
Bob?

626
00:53:17,910 --> 00:53:18,010
Yeah.

627
00:53:19,370 --> 00:53:23,970
Again, tonight was just, what did the architectural firm find for the building?

628
00:53:24,450 --> 00:53:28,070
We'll talk, it lives to what you want to talk about that's all in next week.

629
00:53:28,070 --> 00:53:36,930
Oh, because it just seems like it's, the contextual firm should have been hired for it all because there's other parts to this.

630
00:53:36,930 --> 00:53:37,670
What other parts?

631
00:53:39,410 --> 00:53:40,110
Next week.

632
00:53:40,390 --> 00:53:42,150
We'll give you what we have on the outside.

633
00:53:42,870 --> 00:53:51,190
This was just, the request was made on the June 8th meeting your reference to get an architectural firm to look at space allocation in the building.

634
00:53:53,910 --> 00:53:54,890
It's for everything, yeah.

635
00:53:58,340 --> 00:54:01,960
Yes, certainly parking has to be considered so far. I'm to look at the space

636
00:54:03,720 --> 00:54:07,500
Inside the bill we'll have more we can talk about next week on the ground

637
00:54:10,780 --> 00:54:14,820
Not at this particular time, no, but I agree that eventually that has to happen correct

638
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:17,320
Absolutely

639
00:54:31,700 --> 00:54:38,020
came up and said $30 million, but if we sell other buildings, then we could make money

640
00:54:38,020 --> 00:54:42,580
off those, and I love a good deal, but it's pretty sharp.

641
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:47,780
Would we be responsible for the renovations to those buildings?

642
00:54:48,420 --> 00:54:52,520
Would we have to invest millions of dollars to renovate them in order to be able to sell

643
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:52,840
them?

644
00:54:53,420 --> 00:54:56,120
So we wouldn't have to do so much in it.

645
00:54:56,880 --> 00:54:58,040
Let's go for it, okay.

646
00:54:59,780 --> 00:55:00,500
All right.

647
00:55:02,340 --> 00:55:02,900
So

648
00:55:07,190 --> 00:55:13,910
can you clarify, when you were talking about the three options, and one of the options

649
00:55:13,910 --> 00:55:17,770
was renovate the existing buildings and you had a cost number for it.

650
00:55:18,150 --> 00:55:25,550
You said quickly that while there's a number for it, there may not be the allowable space

651
00:55:25,550 --> 00:55:26,770
to do those.

652
00:55:27,830 --> 00:55:28,810
Could you revisit that?

653
00:55:28,810 --> 00:55:32,570
Yes, that was specifically for the senior center.

654
00:55:33,930 --> 00:55:34,990
Let's see where we are.

655
00:55:40,010 --> 00:55:42,130
Well, I don't have a site plan in the senior center.

656
00:55:42,330 --> 00:55:43,830
Well, here's the senior center, of course.

657
00:55:44,610 --> 00:55:49,030
So, yes, we put a cost to it, but physically,

658
00:55:49,710 --> 00:55:52,630
it doesn't work on this site to expand.

659
00:55:53,210 --> 00:55:55,010
There's not enough space to expand the building,

660
00:55:55,290 --> 00:55:56,410
and there's not enough parking.

661
00:56:01,910 --> 00:56:03,170
It's prime real estate.

662
00:56:04,730 --> 00:56:07,130
If you want to drop by my office, we can talk.

663
00:56:08,510 --> 00:56:08,910
I

664
00:56:16,240 --> 00:56:24,900
hope that all of these questions are happening in this service, which I think they are.

665
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:27,160
What do we do to make this place a great place?

666
00:56:27,820 --> 00:56:34,960
I don't mean to speak for Bob or for the architects, but I think you're seeing a piece of it, meaning

667
00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:40,460
We're seeing here is if he did all this stuff, some big numbers.

668
00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:45,060
What we're not seeing then is, okay, then we have a bunch of empty buildings.

669
00:56:45,340 --> 00:56:49,540
If we sold them, we'll reduce that cost from $30 million, I'll make it up $1 million.

670
00:56:50,620 --> 00:56:56,080
And then over the next 20 years, what's the reduction in maintenance costs for the town,

671
00:56:56,360 --> 00:57:02,080
which is going to obviously impact covering whatever bond we might get to get that?

672
00:57:02,080 --> 00:57:07,260
And I'm not necessarily supporting this, but I think what we ought to live with tonight

673
00:57:07,260 --> 00:57:15,340
is there is an opportunity to consolidate here, to create a place that is a center for

674
00:57:15,340 --> 00:57:17,360
a higginum, which we're trying to do.

675
00:57:17,900 --> 00:57:24,080
And then, therefore, galvanized traffic that might then have a radiating effect, as I say,

676
00:57:24,200 --> 00:57:29,040
in real estate or an associated effect, if you like, that term better, on places like Rossi

677
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:31,720
and schoolable to become better places to be.

678
00:57:32,340 --> 00:57:35,980
So I think all I would hope we would do is say,

679
00:57:36,300 --> 00:57:37,460
based on what we're hearing tonight,

680
00:57:37,980 --> 00:57:40,920
how can we take this and make a holistic view

681
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:42,860
and make what we're seeing better?

682
00:57:43,100 --> 00:57:45,460
Because I think this says there's hope for,

683
00:57:46,340 --> 00:57:48,400
notwithstanding the fact that if someone wants to raise

684
00:57:48,400 --> 00:57:50,040
the building, and I hear that notion,

685
00:57:51,560 --> 00:57:53,880
if we want to keep the building, what can we do?

686
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:56,280
So it's a comment, not a question.

687
00:57:58,890 --> 00:57:59,110
Thank you.

688
00:58:07,790 --> 00:58:08,990
I've got a couple of comments.

689
00:58:10,350 --> 00:58:11,590
Thank you, great presentation.

690
00:58:11,930 --> 00:58:12,650
Thank you for the effort.

691
00:58:12,870 --> 00:58:13,630
We appreciate it.

692
00:58:14,770 --> 00:58:18,570
And thank you, Bob, and Bill, for bringing in the architect.

693
00:58:18,850 --> 00:58:23,850
It was actually my recommendation at the last meeting that we had in June that we bring in an architect to look at the property.

694
00:58:25,070 --> 00:58:28,070
We were talking about a bunch of different things with, and we still are.

695
00:58:28,150 --> 00:58:29,910
Or might be, we'll find out more next week.

696
00:58:30,510 --> 00:58:35,990
But there was, you know, a developer for senior housing, and it's like, well, what if, yeah, we have anybody look at the property

697
00:58:35,990 --> 00:58:39,310
you to find out what it might be capable of or what we could do with it.

698
00:58:39,470 --> 00:58:41,350
It's right literally in the center of our town.

699
00:58:42,130 --> 00:58:45,530
Some people call this the village, some people don't like when we call this Hagenham Village

700
00:58:45,530 --> 00:58:46,390
or whatever.

701
00:58:47,010 --> 00:58:51,650
But it's right in the center of our town, right, 154-81, we're right here.

702
00:58:51,970 --> 00:58:56,210
The whole town literally revolves around this area.

703
00:58:57,010 --> 00:59:03,530
So I think that bringing the town offices down to the green in the center of town where

704
00:59:03,530 --> 00:59:09,190
Where everybody knows where it is, traffic comes by a lot of people, a lot of activity.

705
00:59:09,750 --> 00:59:10,570
I think that's a great thing.

706
00:59:12,230 --> 00:59:18,150
I think that the vibrancy that having a town center, we're right now we don't really

707
00:59:18,150 --> 00:59:19,290
have a town center.

708
00:59:19,750 --> 00:59:24,190
You look at all the towns up and down the river and we're not old saber, and we don't want

709
00:59:24,190 --> 00:59:24,770
to be old saber.

710
00:59:25,070 --> 00:59:29,310
We're not chest or we don't want to be chest or we're had them and we want to be had them.

711
00:59:29,310 --> 00:59:34,930
But a lot of all these other towns have things that are desirable and we can make them the

712
00:59:34,930 --> 00:59:39,390
had a version of some of the really nice stuff that some of these other towns have, right?

713
00:59:39,490 --> 00:59:44,110
And I think that bringing the town offices, consolidate them into one space, it'll bring

714
00:59:44,110 --> 00:59:49,190
efficiencies not just in facilities, maintenance and management, which yes is important, you

715
00:59:49,190 --> 00:59:53,350
know, the actual dollars and cents of it, but what about, you know, networking and having

716
00:59:53,350 --> 00:59:58,910
these people literally working together and water cooler talk, right, in town departments.

717
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:28,200
We're not meeting with each other. And our own ease of doing business with the town, right? You come in and you want to get your dump pass, but you also want to talk to the First Elecment or you want to, you know, check the town records. I mean, having all the town offices in one building, I think, would be, would be really great. So anyway, that's why I recommended we have an architect look at this. It was not to figure out exactly what the project costs were going to be. I have a, I have a background that's what I do.

718
01:00:29,420 --> 01:00:38,600
is development. Architects don't budget projects. Contractors do. Architects can

719
01:00:38,600 --> 01:00:42,840
tell you hey this is our vision and this is our plan. That's what we pay

720
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:48,340
architects to do. But contracts will give you the price. And oftentimes through my

721
01:00:48,340 --> 01:00:54,960
career what I find and no offense the design professionals budgets are not

722
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:57,660
not necessarily spot on where we're going to end up.

723
01:00:59,180 --> 01:01:01,820
So they're a good targeting point.

724
01:01:02,400 --> 01:01:07,140
They get us into the range of, hey, this is approximately what we're talking about for

725
01:01:07,140 --> 01:01:10,640
order of magnitude, but it's not what the project is going to cost.

726
01:01:10,800 --> 01:01:11,700
I can tell you that right now.

727
01:01:15,330 --> 01:01:16,630
I think I've heard a lot.

728
01:01:16,970 --> 01:01:17,790
I'm not on Facebook.

729
01:01:18,330 --> 01:01:21,590
I try not to do a lot of that social media stuff.

730
01:01:22,170 --> 01:01:23,630
Try to spend time with my family instead.

731
01:01:23,630 --> 01:01:30,970
But I've heard a lot of chatter through the people, the parents that we stand at the bus

732
01:01:30,970 --> 01:01:33,350
stop with, and other people I've talked to in town.

733
01:01:34,190 --> 01:01:39,930
And there's a lot of emphasis, I think there's a lot of current in this town for coming

734
01:01:39,930 --> 01:01:41,330
up with a cohesive plan.

735
01:01:42,270 --> 01:01:46,450
And we've heard it even a couple times tonight, and I love that concept.

736
01:01:46,450 --> 01:01:55,130
But whether it's HES, or the Rossi property, or the former state garage, right?

737
01:01:55,310 --> 01:01:58,790
All these things, there's desire for a cohesive plan.

738
01:01:59,650 --> 01:02:04,930
And I think a part of the resistance that we're hearing as a community, and we're feeling

739
01:02:04,930 --> 01:02:10,530
as a community, is it seems like some of this stuff is disjointed, like we'll talk about

740
01:02:10,970 --> 01:02:13,990
the Rossi property, and then we talk about HES.

741
01:02:13,990 --> 01:02:19,210
And they're literally next door to each other, but we have separate conversations about them.

742
01:02:20,130 --> 01:02:27,750
And I don't think that's the fault of anybody's other than it's really hard to have conversations with 300 people at the same time.

743
01:02:28,130 --> 01:02:36,450
There's a much smaller group tonight than we had back in June, but probably in June we had 300 people in this room.

744
01:02:36,450 --> 01:02:39,910
Right, and it's just really hard to have you especially large

745
01:02:40,510 --> 01:02:46,330
Conversations about widespread spending things with a ton of people so I think Bob and Bill are doing a great job

746
01:02:47,290 --> 01:02:54,270
I think that some people think that they're hiding behind their desks or you know that they're not being transparent with the community

747
01:02:54,270 --> 01:02:58,510
I can tell you and I've also got some public service history

748
01:02:58,510 --> 01:03:05,570
Their jobs are not easy to do what they do and stand up in front of a lot of talented and smart people like you

749
01:03:05,570 --> 01:03:12,270
is not easy. So I think we need to realize that they have really hard jobs to do

750
01:03:12,270 --> 01:03:16,530
and they're trying their best and give them a lot of credit for what they are

751
01:03:16,530 --> 01:03:21,170
doing instead of continually throwing them under the bus, right, under the wheels

752
01:03:21,170 --> 01:03:26,250
of the bus. The last comment I want to make tonight is as we talk about this

753
01:03:26,250 --> 01:03:30,610
cohesive plan and as we try to figure this out whether it's HES or the Rossi

754
01:03:30,610 --> 01:03:36,790
property. The rest of what we want to do to take it in the center is budget wise and a lot of

755
01:03:36,790 --> 01:03:46,390
people have brought up budgets tonight as well. I wrote an article for the newspaper. A month

756
01:03:46,390 --> 01:03:52,290
or so ago, a lot of you probably didn't read it and that's great, fine. No offense is taken. I did

757
01:03:52,290 --> 01:03:56,770
write it because I wanted to write it. I wrote it because I was asked to write it. And the reason I was

758
01:03:56,770 --> 01:04:02,950
So that's the right is I'm going, I spend a lot of time paying attention to stuff, and I went to pay attention to the school discussions.

759
01:04:03,990 --> 01:04:11,710
And when I looked around at those meetings when we were talking about the schools, I was disappointed, there's, they're really sparsely attended.

760
01:04:12,030 --> 01:04:18,030
There's not a lot of people paying attention to what's going on, and I'm not going to go off even further on my dietrived night.

761
01:04:18,550 --> 01:04:22,110
But I do want to just drop a couple of bombs on the room.

762
01:04:22,110 --> 01:04:33,570
The $100 million dollars for the school projects that were discussed tonight, that is the very, very, very low end of the cost range.

763
01:04:34,430 --> 01:04:43,170
That is the, literally, let's repair the buildings so they don't fall down cost range, $100 million of maintenance and repairs.

764
01:04:43,910 --> 01:04:53,830
The high end is, let's build new schools, let's consolidate campuses, let's start doing some of these other stuff beyond just keeping the buildings from falling down.

765
01:04:55,010 --> 01:04:58,410
And I think what, I don't know what the proposal is going to be.

766
01:04:58,970 --> 01:05:11,230
I'm not on the board of ed, but the range that they've been talking about, I think we're probably going to end up around 200-ish million dollars on the school campus program.

767
01:05:11,230 --> 01:05:19,310
And there's probably going to be some discussion and a recommendation to consolidate at least a school campus out.

768
01:05:19,990 --> 01:05:26,190
So another situation like an HES where we abandoned the school and I'm not saying abandoned in a bad way.

769
01:05:26,450 --> 01:05:29,770
I'm not trying to speak here with no emotion about the school program.

770
01:05:30,390 --> 01:05:35,150
But just so we're keeping that in mind as well, there's a lot of money we talked about tonight for this property.

771
01:05:35,750 --> 01:05:41,570
We have to think about the Rossi property, but we also have a big, big nut that is coming

772
01:05:41,570 --> 01:05:43,650
down the pike at us from the school program.

773
01:05:44,130 --> 01:05:48,710
And just like we need to think collectively about the properties in Higginham Center,

774
01:05:49,090 --> 01:05:53,070
we also need to think collectively about the budgets and what that means.

775
01:05:53,670 --> 01:05:56,730
So if we spend 32 million here, that's a big number.

776
01:05:58,270 --> 01:06:02,210
I don't think there's anybody in this room who doesn't think 32 million is a lot of money

777
01:06:02,210 --> 01:06:03,650
because it is a lot of money.

778
01:06:03,650 --> 01:06:06,830
It's a lot of money to everybody here, and it's our money, right?

779
01:06:08,150 --> 01:06:13,170
But that's going to be added to a lot of other projects and a lot of other money.

780
01:06:13,590 --> 01:06:17,250
So again, just not to go way off on that, but that's something that we also think collectively

781
01:06:17,250 --> 01:06:21,530
about, the town and the tax dollars, and the rest of the improvements that we have to make

782
01:06:21,530 --> 01:06:27,810
as well, and the school district is going to be a major, major suck on funds in taxes.

783
01:06:29,050 --> 01:06:29,610
Thank you.

784
01:06:29,610 --> 01:06:30,070
All

785
01:06:42,450 --> 01:06:46,490
right,

786
01:06:52,740 --> 01:06:53,640
a couple closing comments.

787
01:06:54,240 --> 01:06:57,640
If 32 million doesn't scare you, please see me, I'm going to check book.

788
01:07:00,210 --> 01:07:03,270
Assuming that's not going to happen, I'd like to thank you all for coming.

789
01:07:03,990 --> 01:07:06,950
Feel free to email my office with any questions you think of.

790
01:07:07,110 --> 01:07:11,290
Like I said, the report will get posted on our website, and the next week we'll take

791
01:07:11,290 --> 01:07:13,270
a look at some options for the idea, right?

792
01:07:14,490 --> 01:07:17,370
What's the time for next week, I hope we're doing a

793
01:07:19,420 --> 01:07:23,100
couple of years, in any of our conversations

794
01:07:23,100 --> 01:07:24,780
that spoke about a water truck?

795
01:07:25,760 --> 01:07:26,920
I talked about it.

796
01:07:30,670 --> 01:07:33,130
I think what this gentleman talked about.

797
01:07:33,810 --> 01:07:36,090
A lot of truck is probably coming to town.

798
01:07:36,430 --> 01:07:39,670
A lot of truck is coming to town.

799
01:07:40,090 --> 01:07:42,410
They are between a million or two to a million.

800
01:07:43,530 --> 01:07:47,150
Plus, you know, you're not going to put it out in the yard with a tariff over it.

801
01:07:47,630 --> 01:07:52,870
So that becomes another building or an addition or something that we have to keep in mind here.

802
01:07:53,930 --> 01:07:55,850
And you and I talked about the town garage.

803
01:07:56,810 --> 01:07:58,310
That's still up in the air too.

804
01:07:59,510 --> 01:08:01,230
How many million dollars are we talking about?

805
01:08:02,450 --> 01:08:04,970
I really don't know and I don't think you do at this point.

806
01:08:05,290 --> 01:08:05,450
Do you?

807
01:08:06,590 --> 01:08:12,330
Now one thing Ron I was going to talk about next week is kind of highlight some of the capital projects

808
01:08:12,330 --> 01:08:15,310
we know around the horizon things we should do.

809
01:08:15,310 --> 01:08:19,630
The latter trick might be one of them, town garage certainly is one of them.

810
01:08:21,510 --> 01:08:27,170
There's a number of things that the school will be in part of it, and we don't know that number at all.

811
01:08:27,830 --> 01:08:33,370
But we can show you what some of our town needs are and what the capital costs of those are.

812
01:08:34,230 --> 01:08:39,230
Because it's not just, I think this is your point, it's not just the 32 million or

813
01:08:39,230 --> 01:08:43,870
the 9 million or whatever for this building, it's let's look at the whole nut and

814
01:08:43,870 --> 01:08:50,010
about let's start differentiating between what we need and what we'd like to

815
01:08:50,010 --> 01:08:53,010
have. And if we can get the like to have that's wonderful or if we can get

816
01:08:53,010 --> 01:08:56,370
somewhere between them that's wonderful but we do have to keep in mind the

817
01:08:56,370 --> 01:09:02,410
need. We need services like from our town garage. Everybody needs them. So we

818
01:09:02,410 --> 01:09:07,190
got to give them a place and what they need to start with.

819
01:09:09,490 --> 01:09:10,410
I'm not sure about

820
01:09:10,410 --> 01:09:13,490
this one yet? Well, I am sure. I know what we talked about.

821
01:09:16,540 --> 01:09:19,740
I'll be glad to. Oh, yeah, thank you,

822
01:09:19,760 --> 01:09:27,760
dear, for reminding me. Why bring it? Why should bring me? I don't know. But that is next Wednesday,

823
01:09:28,160 --> 01:09:32,400
630, at the HK auditorium. In the back, sir.

824
01:09:32,400 --> 01:09:39,100
What do you fill me in on what do the tax revenue of this town were talking about here?

825
01:09:39,460 --> 01:09:40,580
How much do we bring in?

826
01:09:42,840 --> 01:09:43,480
All right.

827
01:09:43,620 --> 01:09:46,340
Our total budget is about $38 million.

828
01:09:47,120 --> 01:09:48,800
And how much does that go to the schools?

829
01:09:49,200 --> 01:09:54,440
Well, the school system takes 72% which in their defense is typical for a regional school

830
01:09:54,440 --> 01:10:00,520
because we looked at it and you can't make a valid cost comparison to the town school districts

831
01:10:00,520 --> 01:10:05,020
So it's because they can read, they can categorize their money differently.

832
01:10:05,220 --> 01:10:07,520
So town and the board of head funds are matched.

833
01:10:07,940 --> 01:10:13,160
I assume they're about to say about three quarters of your tax dollars in Connecticut support the schools.

834
01:10:14,860 --> 01:10:20,680
About 92% of our total revenue from the town comes from property taxes.

835
01:10:22,160 --> 01:10:30,320
So do the map that $29 million is roughly if it's 90% of the $32 million budget.

836
01:10:36,260 --> 01:10:43,920
I have to speak with the superintendent of schools, he says that Adam is getting hammered

837
01:10:43,920 --> 01:10:55,960
by the, not the equal split between telling where, and Adam, something to be done or something

838
01:10:55,960 --> 01:10:58,400
to the Board of Education to bring this place.

839
01:10:58,400 --> 01:11:01,940
And I'll close up, but that's beyond what we're talking about here.

840
01:11:03,040 --> 01:11:08,700
We pay the school district based on a percentage of students are had on students versus killing

841
01:11:08,700 --> 01:11:09,000
work.

842
01:11:09,540 --> 01:11:11,360
That's set out by State Statute.

843
01:11:11,960 --> 01:11:17,740
The State Statute also allow for the towns that are part of the district to agree to a

844
01:11:17,740 --> 01:11:21,680
different funding ratio in the state has to endorse it.

845
01:11:22,060 --> 01:11:23,820
I don't know what all is involved in that.

846
01:11:24,180 --> 01:11:24,840
I don't need them.

847
01:11:24,840 --> 01:11:30,700
I do know if I was a slight wind of a kilo more than I'd say, don't even come to my door with that and that doesn't mean we can't try.

848
01:11:31,060 --> 01:11:31,920
That's what I'm saying.

849
01:11:32,180 --> 01:11:33,360
It will take a while.

850
01:11:33,780 --> 01:11:35,640
I think it should be nothing that happens right now.

851
01:11:35,660 --> 01:11:38,680
I think it should be tried to give us a break.

852
01:11:43,540 --> 01:11:44,240
Anything else?

853
01:11:45,340 --> 01:11:46,400
Let's wrap this thing up.

854
01:11:46,920 --> 01:11:48,500
Again, thank you all for coming.

855
01:11:49,140 --> 01:11:51,440
May I be happy to talk to you if you want to come up here with me?