SOTT Recap

Now that we are in the home stretch, you will be hearing from the Outreach Team a bit more frequently – we thank you for understanding!

State of the Town Update
At Saturday’s State of the Town, the SBC gave an update on the Lincoln School project’s progress since June. Here are the highlights (see the slides, including information from the Finance Committee, here):

• The SBC has focused on 6 major components of the project:
  • Classroom neighborhoods centered on “hub” spaces for grades 3 – 8.
  • The central “heart” of the school: flexible learning commons, media center (library), central dining commons, kitchen, and a central entrance.
  • Sustainability and systems: energy generation (photovoltaic panels), heating/cooling, insulation, safety & security, electrical, and plumbing systems.
  • Exterior architecture.
  • Site plans: roads, walking and bike paths, and recreational spaces.
  • Phasing: where do students go during renovation?
• Cost: For the past 3 weeks, the SBC has concentrated on a “value-engineering” process to keep the project on budget. What does that mean? Where are we now?
  • June 9th: The budget we chose as a Town was $93.9M.
  • September 26th: The SBC got estimates from 2 independent cost estimators. The draft estimates were $102M and $109M.
  • September 28th: The two estimators reconciled their estimates to $104M.
  • October 3rd: SBC’s task? Reduce the project by $10M!
    • SMMA presented about 100 items to consider cutting or reducing.
  • October 3rd – October 17th: The SBC closed the gap and brought the project back to budget! How? Most of the gap was closed by scaling back site work, negotiating for a better price on temporary classrooms, and choosing to pursue a Power Purchase Agreement to install photovoltaic panels instead of incurring this as a capital cost. NOTE: Value-engineering is not just about cutting cost, but about making trade-offs that maintain the long-term value of the project. For example, the SBC chose to add in a better heating/cooling system and accepted a small budget increase to enable us to move forward with the tweak to the design that provided a better floor plan for the central part of the school.

Next SBC Meeting: Wednesday, October 24th, 7pm, Hartwell