Westport in Brief!
EverythingWestport.com
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Photos | EverythingWestport.com
Tax Collector to offer excise tax
optional paperless billing; new fees for on-line payment.
|
Tax Collector to offer excise tax optional paperless billing;
new fees for on-line payment. Motor
Vehicle Excise bills were recently mailed and have a due date of Tuesday,
April 18, 2017. EverythingWestport.com Wednesday, March 22, 2017 Motor Vehicle Excise bills were recently mailed and have a due date of Tuesday,
April 18, 2017. * * * The Town Hall is closed
Friday, April 14th and Monday, April 17th. * * * Taxpayers may make payments at the office, by mail or online. There was
a green notice enclosed with the new bills advising they have changed their online
bill payment vendor to City Hall Systems for tax payments. * * * This new system is now
on-line as of 3/22/2017 * * * If you choose to pay online, you'll have to sign up. Prior users
will receive an email from the new system with an announcement of the change
and how to sign up. Taxpayers may sign up by visiting the town's website at www.westport-ma.com and clicking on Pay
Taxes Online. Follow the instructions from there. This new system has a fee of 50 cents per shopping cart for payments
made by checking or savings accounts; the old system was 35 cents per
bill. Payments made by credit card or debit card are charged 2.95% ($1 minimum)
of the amount charged. This system will also allow customers to sign up for paperless billing,
which is voluntary. Auto pay will also be available. Any questions regarding setting
up an account or finding your bills online, call City Hall Systems at
508.381.5455. All bills are due by April 18, 2017. Please plan accordingly. Architectural firm reduces costs in
effort to win bid. EverythingWestport.com Thursday, March 23, 2017 Photos | EverythingWestport.com
Special Correspondent to
EverythingWestport.com Having
reviewed presentations from two architectural firms at their Wednesday, March
22nd meeting, the Westport Owner’s
Project Manager (OPM) Dan Tavares gave the building
committee a spreadsheet comparing the potential costs of the two plans after
the presentations were done, indicating that a switch to the model school
design could lower project costs by $4 to $6 million dollars. Inset: OPM Dan Tavares is guiding the School
Building Committee through the perilous waters of procuring a new school building. The
building committee agreed to meet again on Wednesday, March 29th to further
discuss the two options. MSBA-offered Model School Most
of the savings would be generated by increased reimbursement incentives
offered the town by the Mass. School Building Authority (MSBA),
a cap on architect’s fees that could save more than a million dollars, and a
shortened construction time which could eliminate some inflationary cost
increases, Tavares indicated.
Above: Longmeadow High School offered up to the town of Westport as a Model
school alternative by the MSBA. OMR Architect photo. On the negative side, the L-shaped design of the model school plans
used to build the Longmeadow High School in 2011 would be harder to fit on
the Old County Road site of the closed Westport Middle School chosen as the
location for the new school facility being planned.
Inset: OMR Architects
project manager Jeanne Roberts brought a team of a half dozen designers, job
managers, and landscaping consultants along for the presentation . OMR Architects project
manager Jeanne Roberts brought a team of a half dozen designers, job
managers, and landscaping consultants along for the presentation, outlining the
advantages of using the model school design they had developed for the
Longmeadow High School project. With minor modifications to the plans,
Roberts said the design could easily be adapted to fit Westport’s needs for a
“co-located” middle school and high school. The
major advantages to the model school plans are lower soft costs and higher MSBA reimbursements, an accelerated timetable for construction,
and a design which has been proven to be effective. She also noted that the
building layout allows the academic spaces to be easily closed off to allow
the auditorium, cafeteria and gymnasium spaces to be used in the evening and
on weekends for community events. The
model plan calls for the middle school academic spaces to be located on the
ground floor of the two-story structure, with high school classes located on
the second floor. There is only a few hundred more square feet of space in
the model school plan than the locally-developed design, but the building’s
footprint would permit only a baseball field, softball field, and four tennis
courts on the site. By
comparison, the custom-designed local alternative has a more compact
footprint that would permit the construction of baseball and softball
diamonds, field hockey and soccer fields, and a practice field in addition to
the four tennis courts which would be displaced by the new construction. OMR
principal designer Leigh Sherwood noted that “there are many ways to
customize the academic spaces to fit Westport’s needs.” However, any major
modifications to the model school design, or materials used, would result in
additional charges, Roberts indicated. The
Longwood school was built at a cost of $47.48 million in 2011, and when
adjusted for inflation to today’s construction costs, would likely come in at
between $60 million and $65 million. Adding soft costs and the $8.5 million
estimated for the demolition of the closed middle school, the total project
costs were estimated at $76 million to $81 million, not including the extra
$2-3 million expected for a larger gymnasium and walking track the building
committee is considering as a result of community input on the plans. If put
out to bid in 2018, Roberts estimated that total project costs would probably
come in between $78 million and $83 million. Town meeting approval of the
project in the fall of 2017 would allow the project to go out to bid in the
spring of 2018, and allow construction to start in June 2018, she suggested. Candidate
for selectman in the April town election Brian Valcourt
was the first audience member to question how the reduced number of playing
fields would impact school athletic programs, asking if the athletic fields
at the current high school campus would be maintained for school use. Building
committee co-chair Dianne Baron said that determination would have to be made
by the Westport School Committee once a site plan is finalized. “We will not
get reimbursed by the MSBA to reproduce those
fields,” she said, noting that residents will want to know what will happen
with the high school fields if a new facility is built. Custom-designed school building Jonathan
Levi, the local architect who has been working with the building committee
for the past year, suggested there are “some advantages” to continuing with
the current project team that helped develop the “preferred option” for a new
co-located school facility specifically designed to meet the needs outlined
by educators, parents, and other community members. Those
special needs incorporated into in the locally-developed design include a
television studio, chorus room, child care space, and extra common spaces for
project-based
learning, he pointed out. Project Based
Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills
by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an
engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge. The
H-shaped building design developed through that local input process has the
middle and high school academic spaces clearly separated, but sharing the
central “core” facilities such as an auditorium, gymnasium, cafeteria and
administrative areas, Levi noted. He Estimated
construction costs came in at about $76 million, including demolition of the
old school, with the additional gym space and walking track bringing the
building costs to about $78.2 million. Total project costs had been estimated
at around $94 million for the local option, but have now been substantially
reduced. Inset: Jonathon Levi of JLA shows off the 3D model of his firm’s “preferred
solution” for a new Jr/Sr High School building. The
Westport resident is incorporating Westport-flavored exterior touches in the
design. However,
Levi suggested a few alternatives for lowering construction costs; he has
already offered to cut architectural fees from 10 percent of building costs
to a lesser percentage.
Further,
his “surprise” suggestion for lowering construction costs was to consider
using off-site modular construction for much of the building. That option
could lower construction costs between five and 15 percent, and cut some
architectural fees in half, Levi said.
The
architect also suggested using an alternative procurement method called
“construction manager at risk” (CMR) which would
give the town more control over the building process than hiring a general
contractor giving the lowest bid price. Click here to learn more about Construction
Manager at Risk. The CMR method also allows the town to require a percentage
of the construction work and labor pool to go to local subcontractors, he
explained. That
method could create up to 250 jobs for area residents, and result in as much
as “$13.7 million in economic activity pumped into the local economy,” Levi
said. “This is just one approach we can explore together... It would be a
little more work, but it might mean considerable savings.” At the
end of his presentation, the Westport architect concluded, “The case for a
community design and cost control (opportunities) is very clear” when
compared to a model school plan. School Building Committee
Reactions. Westport
School Committee member Antonio Viveiros was the
first to suggest that “OMR’s presentation, with two (athletic) fields, and
Jonathan Levi’s presentation with six fields, is a huge difference.” Fellow
building committee member Dave Cass agreed that the H-shaped local design was
a much better fit for the Old County Road site.
Inset: Co-chair Tracy Priestner has worked hard on the project’s cost, doing
due diligence for the Westport taxpayer. At
present, with grades 7-12 in the current high school, the administrative team
includes one principal and two assistant principals. School
Committee Chair Nancy Rioux said that plans for
future staffing decisions have not yet been discussed by her board; Tavares
noted that decisions on the size of the administration offices will have to
be made before a design is finalized. Distributing
a comparative spreadsheet of costs for the two options now on the table,
Tavares noted that going with a model school design “could have a significant
impact” on total project costs even though actual construction costs would be
similar with either plan. “It
could be four to six million dollars in direct savings to taxpayers... not to
mention the (shortened) time,” he said. The
owner’s project manager indicated he was surprised with the unexpected
suggestion to consider the CMR option for the
project raised by Levi, and would need some time to
research that management option to see “if it is viable.” The
biggest savings with the model school plan would be with architectural and
design fees, capped at 4.75 percent by MSBA guidelines,
and a one-time MSBA-offered additional
reimbursement of five percent, Tavares said. The
custom plan’s fees are capped at 10 percent of the project costs, he noted;
the difference would be “in the millions” when added to the estimated
$100,000 per month in escalated building costs that could be saved with the
use of a model plan. Levi
has suggested in the past that his architectural and design fees are
negotiable, possibly bringing total cost of the two designs considerable
closer.
Above: Westport residents, who turned out to listen to the two proposals, examine
the “preferred solution’s” 3D model.
Above: JLA’s proposed “co-located” middle school and high school better separates grades
5-8 from the older high school students, a concern of many parents. The
compact design will also adapt to the Middle School’s challenging site layout,
including the number of sports fields desired by the community. © 2017 Community Events of
Westport. All rights reserved. EverythingWestport.com |
