Facilities Steering Committee, Phase II
Town of Princeton, MA
meeting minutes for 12/10/18
7pm at town hall annex
Attending for the committee: Richard Chase, Noelani Chase, Rick McCowen, Larry Todd
Not attending: Dennis Moore
Also attending: Karen Cruise, BOS liaison and Steve Mirick, member of 1st FSC
Richard opened the meeting at 7:05 pm.
The minutes of 12/3 were approved.
Richard noted the Townsend fire chief has invited our committee to visit their fire stations and talk about their public safety. If more than 2 of us attend will we have to post it as a public meeting. We will use doodle to schedule this visit.
We asked Steve to help us with information and answer questions.
Why is the sq ft cost of a fire bay the same as the office space ? The pieces of the project are factored together. For example, at prevailing wage, figure the cost of a carpenter at $1.50 per minute and this affects all costs. Even if Morton supplied and built the building shell they would have to pay their people the prevailing wage.
Steve noted the cost for public projects increases at 5% to 7% per year.
Two approaches to a project: design to a budget or budget to a design.
Steve recommended we demolish the old school, use a pre engineered building and calculate the span and height carefully to reduce the number of columns.
The Princeton DPW garage is a pre engineered building.
What do the state regulations say about design build ? We will ask Nina to check into this.
We raised the point - isn’t the basic issue what the town can afford ? Steve said much of the cost is dictated by state regulations.
Karen asked - can we ask JWA to design a building that adds two vehicle bays and reduces the cost by $2 million ?
We asked Steve, where does he think we can save on the cost ? He offered: type of structure, don’t retain the current building and we should adjust the orientation of the proposed building.
Is there someone in the town who could function as the OPM.
Karen commented we should not put up a building in the historical district that has an industrial look. We noted that Morton, for example, has additional components they can add to the facade to soften the look.
There was discussion of the trade offs between lowering the initial cost and spending more for longer term savings; ie. greater insulation, radiant heating, more expensive heating systems which would save money in operating costs. Value analysis should be part of the process.
There was discussion of more general issues - should the building have space for a dispatch area in times of emergency - think ice storm.
Karen offered the thought that even if we have plans for a “shovel ready” project, noone at the state level has said we will get funding.
Alternative thought; could we sell the site and have a developer build the public safety facility to our specs and then lease it to the town ? Rick said he will contact CMRPC to inquire if they have any knowledge of this.
The committee approved the sheet to be sent out in the mailing with the annual town census.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:36 pm.
Submitted by Larry Todd, clerk
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