Above: Described as “phase zero” of Town’s analysis, consultants studying the Town’s space needs and options recommended a plan to completely repurpose two Town owned buildings.
Last week, several Town Committees heard the results of a Space Needs Study conducted for the Town. Consultants reported options and their recommendation for how best to house Town Departments and services. The recommendation was for a project to reutilize municipal buildings.
Throughout the meeting, Capital Planning Committee Chair Jason Malinowski repeatedly stressed the importance of community dialogue and partnering with the Town departments to hash out any issues. He stated that it will take “significant public vetting and ultimately Town Meeting funding for anything more to happen”.
Introducing the presentation, he cautioned:
the images, options, etc are very preliminary – and this should be considered a phase zero of any analysis.
Capital’s consultants then proceeded to walk through six options (plus one deemed not viable) before recommending one of them.
The recommended option (#7) is based on renovating the Woodward School building to repurpose it for municipal and community use. It would also repurpose the Town House, including using it as an annex for the Southborough Library.
Background
The Space Needs Study is a result of the Capital Planning Committee examining the Town’s near and long term capital expense needs. The recommendation is contingent on a project under the School Research subcommittee of Capital Planning and the School Committee.
In fall 2020 they began looking into the possibility of eliminating one of the four K-8 schools based on declined enrollments. Capital and Advisory committees were interested in potential cost savings. Superintendent Gregory Martineau said he wanted to reduce the number of school transitions for elementary students. They identified Neary as seeming to have the most potential for adding more students and Woodward as the most logical option for eliminating from the school inventory. (You can read more background here.)
The School Committee previously approved the administration’s submission of a Statement of Interest to the Mass School Building Authority to pursue a project related to Neary. As part of the process, the MSBA asked the Town to analyze what they would do with the Woodward building if they no longer used it as a school.
According to Keturah Martin, the School Committee’s rep on that subcommittee, they have also been looking into options for still pursuing a project if the MSBA timeline isn’t viable.** She said they will be reporting their findings to the School Committee on February 9th.
Recommendation
As for the specific recommendation by the consultant working for the Capital Committee, it calls for:
- Renovating Woodward to relocate the Senior Center and all Town Departments (except for the Dept of Public Works, Public Safety and the Library) into the building
- Relocating the Superintendent’s office for the public schools (currently housed at Neary)
- Repurposing the Town House to use as an annex to the Library for the Library’s expanded needs (e.g., the Children’s Library and programs) and some shared conference room and storage use.
- Expanding the DPW building (a step also shown in all other 6 options)
- Disposing of South Union Building (a step also shown in all other “valid” options)* and Cordaville Hall (current location of the Senior Center)
The plans were based on DRA Architects’ study of the Town departments’ current and future needs for square footage. They were designed to cover worst case scenarios for growth. They also took into consideration that some departments should be together for efficiency and some should be located in a central part of town.
Reactions
Stakeholder committees noted a need to reflect on the recommendations, discuss them, then come back with comments. However, there were some initial questions and concerns voiced. Below are some highlights.
Capital member Jeffrey Hark asked if DRA had researched the cost considerations for each scenario. Project Manager, Courtney Southwick said that they had only looked at the preliminary costs for the recommended option. There was a huge range of potential costs, since existing conditions of the building haven’t been investigated.
Hark said that weighing the cost of options should be a factor. DRA Principal Ken Best agreed with Malinowski’s assessment that repurposing the school would be at least 20-25% less expensive than building something new elsewhere to accommodate some of the Town’s needs.
The consultants said that no departments had objected to their assessment of the amount of space needed. But they acknowledged that there was “some concern” from the Library about splitting their space. They noted that a state grant process for a Library addition project could take 10-20 years. In the meantime, the Town House’s proximity was pitched as a “golden opportunity” for the Library to expand.
Library Trustee Amy Yazdani told the committee that Trustees would probably need to survey their patrons. She noted that splitting services would be difficult for parents of young children who would be forced to schlep them to multiple buildings. She opined it would be disheartening for a large group of their patrons. She also worried about the increase in staffing costs that would be caused by the split. Currently, staff members can cover multiple areas.
Malinowski acknowledged that the Library annex concept would be one of the details that needs the most discussion with user groups and the community. [click to keep reading…]
Tagged as:
consolidating-schools,
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