A view of the proposed renovated and expanded Mount Greylock Regional School. The new academic wing is at the top.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Not everything went according to schedule for the Mount Greylock School Building Committee on Thursday, but a hiccup in its schedule will not affect its progress in the Massachusetts School Building Authority process.

 

The committee had planned to interview construction management firms on Thursday afternoon and hold a joint meeting with the Mount Greylock School Committee that evening to hire a CM.

 

Instead, that selection was delayed until Thursday, Oct. 29, because of a failure to post the interviews as a public meeting.

 

Owner's project manager Trip Elmore of Dore & Whittier told the committee he had not in the past seen such interviews posted but was informed by the school district's counsel that they should have been.

 

The good news is that the three management firms selected for interviews each said they could reschedule for next Thursday. The bad news is that the firm chosen will have less time to develop an estimate of the building cost before the School Committee sends a final number to MSBA in early December.

 

"They certainly are going to be asked to move quickly," Elmore said of the firm picked on Oct. 29. "On Friday of next week, we'll tell them they've been awarded a one-month service contract. They'll get drawings from Design Partnership immediately and have some conference calls to make sure they understand the scope.

 

"We'll be asking on the 16th of November for them to provide their estimate and Design Partnership to provide their estimate. There will be a meeting at the Design Partnership office on the 17th. ... The idea is we try to to get out to committee members as soon as possible the numbers we see from the two estimators — the morning of the 18th or the evening of the 17th."

 

Because on Nov. 19, the School Building Committee and School Committee will hold a joint meeting to look at the final estimate for the addition/renovation project. The schematic design and number go to MSBA on or about Dec. 1. In January, the district finds out if the project passes muster with officials in Boston and the clock starts ticking toward spring votes in each of Mount Greylock's member towns: first to approve the project and then to approve the debt exclusion for a 30-year bond to pay for the project.

 

On Thursday, architect Bob Bell of Design Partnership of Cambridge walked the committee through the latest developments in the evolving design, and the committee weighed the pros and cons of including a new gas-fired condensing boiler to supplement the school's existing oil-fired boilers.

 

Mount Greylock Facilities Supervisor Jesse Wirtes of the SBC's facilities working group recommends that the current oil burners be upgraded and the gas condensing boiler be added — if not as part of the building project then in the near future.

 

The problem is that the MSBA likely will not participate in the cost of a new boiler, Elmore advised the committee.

 

On the other hand, a gas boiler could lead to savings in the school's annual operating expenses — not so much now while fuel oil is relatively inexpensive but down the road if oil again becomes significantly more expensive than propane.

 

"I'd say we just go with the status quo ... as long as there's something in the budget that says eight years from when the building is built, w have a plan to take out two of the boilers and put in a condensing boiler," Wirtes said.

 

School Building Committee Chairman Mark Schiek suggested that the committee keep the condensing boiler in the design for now with the potential that it be removed down the road as part of the project's "value engineering" process.

 

That process, Elmore reminded the committee, will require the panel to continue making hard choices about what stays and goes in the project. Some items already have been cut — like sinks in each classroom and a peaked roof on the addition — but a typical value engineering list runs between 50 and 100 items, Elmore said. It will be up to the building committee to decide which items are essential and which can be taken out of the project to save costs.

 

A couple of likely candidates were seen by the committee for the first time on Thursday evening: a proposed outdoor amphitheater that could be located on the building's west side between the auditorium and the gymnasium and an outdoor classroom space on the north side of the planned three-story academic wing.

 

Both of those features drew favorable responses from members of the committee, but the cost for each  likely would be born entirely by the district since they would be site work outside the scope of the MSBA's participation.

 

"We could find other outside funding or delay it," committee member Richard Cohen said of the landscaping projects.

 

In other business on Thursday, Bell told the committee that based on feedback from its previous meeting, the designers had gone back to the drawing board and relocated the proposed administration office to be adjacent to the school's main entrance.

 

The move required shifting the new life skills classroom out of the first floor of the new academic wing and into space that previously would have been part of the guidance offices. But the new location for life skills makes sense since it moves closer the health classroom, Bell said.

 

Designers also responded to the committee's comments about parking and the driveway that will circle the school. At the suggestion of member Robert Ericson, the parking lot previously drawn on the north side of the gymnasium has been moved to the building's southwest corner, and its access will be from the main parking lot, meaning that driveway around the school will be for emergency vehicles only.