Authorization to Submit a Statement of Interest to Massachusetts School Building Authority for Franklin School Roof Replacement

Transcript (~11 min @ 11:45)

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▶ 11:32 Speaker 9: Councilor Jamine? Yes. Councilor fro? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Carrum Chetty? Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver. Yes. President Melli? Yes. Councilor Gareg? Yes. Motion passes.

▶ 11:51 Mark Garipay: Okay. On to I, uh, next one. ID, 1, 2, 4, 2 3. Authorization to submit a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for Franklin School Roof replacements.

▶ 12:04 Speaker 7: Thank you. Um, so the, um, the MSBA Accelerator Repair Program, some of you're probably familiar with it from other projects. Um, it pays typically about half of the cost of projects of this type. We did the Hoover School and the Horse Mann School roofs a few years ago. Um, the, the Franklin Project actually involves the roof and ideally the windows and the doors, the remaining windows that we haven't replaced yet, as well as the doors. But we're still working on, um, cost estimates to determine if we can really fit that whole scope into this project. Um, but the good news is for tonight's vote, all we're asking for is permission to submit that statement of address, which is the first phase, um, of the approval process. And the school committee did recently vote to approve, um, the city's ability or the superintendent's ability to submit a statement of address. So that's what we're seeking tonight. There's no money involved, and we would have to come back before you with authorization to borrow, um, or, or to use another funding source, uh, for our half of the project.

▶ 13:11 Mark Garipay: Okay. Um, right now, uh, councilor Hamilton is first in the queue.

▶ 13:16 Ward Hamilton: Thank you. Just a few quick questions. Sure. Um, and I know the, uh, next item before us has to do with the high school roof over the learning commons. Yes. Um, about a year

▶ 13:26 Speaker 7: and a half ago, I don't know if it was Gale Associates that did some studies mm-hmm. And it was the roof over the learning commons, the Ripley and, and the Franklin. And the Franklin. Yes. So I know it was a year and a half ago, but we have a sense, or we're working towards a sense of what those costs are. Yeah. We do have an estimate from that process. We have an estimate for just the Franklin roof, but we don't have the estimate yet for the windows and the doors. Right. Because those weren't part of that initial study. Yep. Um, yeah, the, the Hoover roof was, I wanna say around two and a half million. Um, and is a very similar building. One difference is that we are replacing that small section of roof in the Franklin right now. So that would be removed from this project as compared to the Hoover project. But it's, it's a very similar project. So the roof component itself will probably be, you know, in that ballpark. And, uh, and I understand that the,

▶ 14:23 Ward Hamilton: the Franklin project has to do with roofing and windows. And I think we've seen that the masonry component, particularly between the windows and the parapet, or the top of the brick masonry walls in issue. And then, you know, looking at that myself, uh, you can see there are some really significant deficiencies. So my only comment would be that as we put together cost estimates, um, for what we're gonna submit to MSBA, that we make sure, not make sure, but that, you know, we watch and keep, keep in mind and be cognizant of the masonry needs for, for the brick walls that, you know, need a lot of work. So, thank you. I appreciate you doing all this, and thank you. I and appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 15:10 Mark Garipay: Councilor Jamal.

▶ 15:13 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you Chair. Um, thank you for being with us tonight. I, uh, actually the question is kind of following up on, um, councilor Hamilton question. Uh, we know how much Franklin, uh, uh, school is in need of a total, um, renovation, construction, and all kind of, um, uh, you know, work for the building. Um, starting with the roof. Is that something that you feel it's, it's the need to prioritize if we know that this building needs way more work?

▶ 15:55 Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the interior of the Franklin is actually not, not in terrible shape. We've done a lot of the floor remediation over the last five years. Um, so a lot of the flooring is new. We've painted a lot of classrooms. We've started replacing the windows. Um, I think the, the interior is not actually in, in all that bad shape and can, we can continue to maintain it with just, you know, smaller renovation projects. But the building envelope is in fairly desperate conditions. So the, um, the roof and the windows and the masonry, as Councillor Hamilton mentioned, are the highest priorities. The exterior doors, we replace the worst of them. So the, if we have to cut something from the project, I'm envisioning the, the remainder of the exterior doors would be the first thing to come off the project. Um, but I do think that the building envelope is the, the most dire need over there. And, um, these two projects, the, the Franklin Roof and the Learning Commons roof along with the Winthrop roof are probably our three biggest needs right now. But the problem with the Winthrop is that school really needs a lot more. Mm-hmm. So, you know, that's a bigger conversation. So these are the logical next projects for the MSBA.

▶ 17:06 Maya Jamaleddine: Yeah. So if we are, we are talking about the ECC specifically, what is the next item that you feel that needs to be done at the, in this building?

▶ 17:16 Speaker 7: The, it's a close tie between the roof and a handful of windows that still have some leaking issues.

▶ 17:23 Speaker 10: Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you.

▶ 17:29 Speaker 2: Council Nuro?

▶ 17:30 Cal Finocchiaro: Yep. Thank you for being here tonight. Um, I actually just have a question about the timeline of things. So this has to be in between before March 21st, is that correct? Mm-hmm. Yes. And then can you just walk us through a little bit of the, what happens after that?

▶ 17:43 Speaker 7: So then we wait for the MSBA to make their determination. Mm-hmm. Which takes months. And I don't remember from the Hoover and Horseman projects, but I do recall that we applied one year and then the roofs were constructed, not that next construction season, but the construction the summer after that. So that would put us in summer 2026 construction if everything Okay. Stays on track. I believe that's, that's how it worked with the last two. And

▶ 18:09 Speaker 9: We're, we're looking at them funding about 50% of it typically. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you.

▶ 18:15 Speaker 2: Council Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

▶ 18:18 Robb Stewart: Um, thank you madam. Uh, can, can you share, um, have you discussed with finance, how, if this goes forward, uh, this will, uh, be financed.

▶ 18:34 Speaker 7: So until we have the final cost estimates, they can't tell us for sure, but I did meet with Carrie to talk about, you know, possible funding strategies. Um, and we do seem to have the, the bonding capacity. Um, so that's a possible avenue. But she said that, you know, without, until we're a little farther down the road, she wasn't comfortable identifying a specific funding source. So she asked me to, you know, let you all know if it came up that, that we don't have a specific funding source identified.

▶ 19:06 Robb Stewart: And most likely in fiscal year 26 sounds like

▶ 19:10 Speaker 7: For construction? Yeah,

▶ 19:13 Robb Stewart: For financing. Oh,

▶ 19:14 Speaker 7: for financing. Um,

▶ 19:16 Robb Stewart: You can try to squeeze it in this year, or

▶ 19:18 Speaker 7: No, it certainly wouldn't be, we probably won't even hear back from MSBA this fiscal year. So yeah, 26 at the earliest. 26. Okay. It could even be fiscal 27 if the, if the construction is starting in summer of 26, we'd be into fiscal 27.

▶ 19:31 Robb Stewart: Okay. And that leads to the next question. Is there, um, uh, other temporary plans in the case that, uh, further deterioration, like if we have leaks and so forth? I would,

▶ 19:45 Speaker 7: We've been, uh, our staff has been up on the roofs of many of the schools plugging leaks, um, putting on coatings, various things to, to stop leaks in all different roofing systems. Um, and we would continue to do that. We're also, right now we're working, uh, Greenwood Industries is under contract to replace the, the small roof over room 26 in the Franklin, because that was the one that was having an immediate issue, that it's been a problem for years. Um, we could always consider doing another small contract like that, but I think at this point, if we get into the M-S-B-A-Q, we would just patch things until, uh, until the project is ready. Great.

▶ 20:24 Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

▶ 20:26 Mark Garipay: Anyone else for the first time? Councilor Jamal?

▶ 20:30 Maya Jamaleddine: I'm sorry. Thank you. Um, council Jamal, it's actually, uh, just remember, is there any brands that could be available for this kind of projects in terms of fixing the roof and or the building?

▶ 20:43 Speaker 7: I'm not aware of any grants beyond the MSBA. I mean, technically the MSBA is essentially a grant for half of the cost. Um, and with a lot of these programs, they don't, they don't allow, if you're getting funding from something else, they don't necessarily allow you to chase another funding source. But yeah, most of the grants that we're seeing right now, um, they're not for roofs. The only one I've seen that's for roofs is if you're putting on solar afterwards. And I'm not sure we, we will certainly look into if we qualify for that. Um, but short of that, I don't anticipate any,

▶ 21:16 Maya Jamaleddine: Any good things. What about the other, um, projects that we need to fix in the building? For instance, the Windows or any other things? Um, did we look into grants? And if in any case, do we have someone that would monitor? Or how does your, you know, team monitor those grants or look up for these grants?

▶ 21:38 Speaker 7: We're, we're sort of in constant communication with the state, with, um, professional organizations. We get a lot of literature all the time when there are grant opportunities. And also a lot of our consultants who are always trying to get us to hire them to help with grant applications so they can ultimately help with the work of the grant. Um, so we do tend to hear about them. And I think energy efficiency is the one way that, that, the one avenue that we've seen for some, um, you know, maybe windows and there may be some very small incentives from National Grid if we were able to improve energy efficiency with any of these projects. Um, but I will say roof's, windows and doors really aren't a big area for grants. I think like the HVAC systems and decarbonization, that's where a lot of the new grant programs seem to be.

▶ 22:29 Speaker 2: Got it. Thank you. Council Ro second? Yes. Um,

▶ 22:30 Speaker 9: Just wanted to make a motion to recommend

▶ 22:35 Mark Garipay: Second, second motion to recommend by Council ro seconded by Counsel Hamilton on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. That order, we'll go on to city Council. Next up, we have ID 1 2 4 2 4 authorization to submit a statement of interest to Massachusetts School Building Authority for Melrose High School Roof Replacement Director. Thank you for Waco office. Um,