7 January, 2015
The Elementary School Building Committee met on Monday December 22nd, at HCAM studios, for their last meeting of 2014. During the meeting, architectural firm DRA provided the board with a "Site Evaluation Criteria Matrix"; the presentation laid out all of the different campus options for the different sites under consideration. A number of options were presented, including six options for the Center School site, the option to add a building to the Elmwood campus, and several options for the Irvine and Todaro properties. Architect James Barrett stressed to the committee that while these plans may "look a lot like architecture", they are far from the stage of designing the buildings themselves; "what were really doing at this juncture, is test fit analysis, it's the ability of these sites to hold and contain that building footprint program as a test at this juncture, we're not finalized yet on full size of the existing facility, we're making an attempt to do an evaluative assessment based on what we know to date and that includes playfield area, parking and those types of services that are necessary."
Chair Joe Markey emphasized that right now the planning process is taking place to come up with a final plan to present at town meeting 2015. "It's taking us 18 months to get to where we are now, but in the next month we will be doing a lot of critical evaluation and decision making on site alternatives." Markey mentioned that by town meeting a site will already be selected and now is the time to evaluate.
