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Board of Aldermen 5-12-2020 Page 2

The roll call was taken with 14 members of the Board of Aldermen present: Alderman Michael B. O’Brien,
Sr., Alderman Patricia Klee, Alderwoman Shoshanna Kelly, Alderman Richard A. Dowd, Alderman June M.
Caron, Alderman Benjamin Clemons, Alderman Lopez, Alderman David C. Tencza, Alderwoman Elizabeth
Lu, Alderman Ernest Jette, Alderman Jan Schmidt, Alderman Skip Cleaver, Alderman Linda Harriott-
Gathright, and Alderman Wilshire.

Alderman Brandon Michael Laws recorded absent.

Mayor James W. Donchess, Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton, Tim Cummings, Economic
Development Director, Rich Lannan, Chairman Performing Arts Steering Committee, and Deb Novotny,
Chairman, Capital Campaign Committee were also in attendance via teleconference.

Alderman O’Brien

| am present, | can hear you and | am alone.

Alderman Klee

Present, | can hear you and | am alone at the moment but as say to everybody my husband and
greyhounds are in the house and can make an appearance at any time. Thank you.

Alderwoman Kelly
Here, | am alone and | can hear everybody.
Alderman Dowd

Yes, | am here and | can hear everyone, | am alone practicing social distancing in accordance with the
Govemor’s order.

Alderman Caron

| am here, | am alone and | can hear everyone.

Alderman Clemons

| am here, participating via telephone per the Governor's Order, | can hear everyone and | think that’s it.
Alderman Lopez

| am here, | am alone, | am practicing social distancing because | don’t like to share.
Alderman Tencza

| am here, | can hear everybody and | am alone.

Alderwoman Lu

| am here, | can hear everyone and | am alone.

Alderman Jette

| am here, | am alone and | can hear you.

Board of Aldermen 5-12-2020 Page 3
Alderman Schmidt

| am here, | can hear everyone and | am alone except for this crazy bird on my shoulder.
Alderman Cleaver

| am here and | am alone.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

| am present, | can hear you guys, | am doing social distancing and | am alone in this room but there are
others in the house.

President Wilshire

| am here, | can hear everyone, | am home alone and | am home because of the Governor’s Orders to stay
at home.

Susan Lovering, City Clerk

You have 14 in attendance.

President Wilshire

Also present | believe is Mayor Donchess?

Mayor Donchess

Yes Madam President, hello.

President Wilshire

Thank you. Corporation Counsel Steven Bolton; Tim Cummings, Economic Development Director.

COMMUNICATIONS

From: Lori Wilshire, President, Board of Aldermen
Re: Calling a Special Board of Aldermen Meeting on May 12, 2020

There being no objection, President Wilshire accepted the communication, placed it on file.

UPDATE
Performing Arts Center Steering Committee

President Wilshire recognized Economic Development Director Tim Cummings

President Wilshire

We have an update this evening on the Performing Arts about the Performing Arts Steering Committee.
Right now | am going to recognize Economic Development Director, Tim Cummings, Director Cummings?

Board of Aldermen 5-12-2020 Page 4

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

Can you hear me now? Sorry about that, thank you. | appreciate the time that everyone is giving. | just
wanted to just quickly provide an update on the Performing Arts Center, particularly with an eye focused on
the Capital Campaign side of things, because | know that has been of particular interest. But also just
thought it would be prudent just to quickly run through maybe some of the design updates that have
occurred recently.

Joining me this evening we have the Chair of the Capital Campaign Committee Deb Novotny and the Chair
of the Performing Arts Center Steering Committee Rich Lannan. | am going to turn it over to Rich in just a
second to walk through some of the slides that | am about to put up. | am going to start sharing my screen
here. This way everyone can see it. This is a presentation that the Performing Arts Center Steering
Committee had with the architect a couple weeks back, May 4" that is, so | think that was actually last
week. It gets to the point that | wanted to illustrate to the group which is, despite all that is happening with
COVID-19, | wanted to emphasize that we are still making this project a priority. We are working it through
the process and we have been having meetings on it. So it has been a little bit slower due to obvious
reasons, but nonetheless, we are working through the various issues to keep this project on track. So with
that being said, Rich Lannan is here and he is going to speak in a little bit more detail. | have the
PowerPoint Presentation on my computer here. | am sharing my screen, so | am going to ask Rich to tell
me when he would like to have the slides switched from one screen to the next. So with that being said, if |
may, Madam President, I’d like to hand it off to Rich.

President Wilshire
You bet. Mr. Lannan?

Rich Lannan, Chairman, Performing Arts Center Steering Committee

Good evening everybody, Rich Lannan, at Tim stated | am the Chair of the Steering Committee as | think
most of you know. This presentation, it is very lengthy and we are going to just going to skip through a few
more important slides. The reason why we had a meeting recently, had some on-going discussions over
the last couple of months from the Steering Committee. It was thought from the architect and Harvey
Construction from a cost analysis as well, that the balcony basically, the call it the “rake” which is basically
the pitch and the slope of the balcony, it was kind of maxed out sort to speak as far as what the high end of
that rake should be. It was thought that we should try to design it and drop that down so it doesn’t be as
steep, as much of a pitch as it was.

The slide presentation that is further on | think make get more complicated Tim. But if you can go down to
the elevation that would be the — there are a lot of slides in here that are comparing other — but if you look
Tim the slides don’t have numbers but it says, “Nashua PAC Chamber Section’. Slide down a little further,

| think it’s the one that says — next one maybe? You can go all the way down to the balcony if you want,
Tim. Basically that is the design of the theater to your right, is Main Street, to the top is West Pearl Street.
So that balcony basically has been decided to again lower the rake or the pitch of the balcony so it not quite
as steep. By doing so, what it did was it pushes the building out — Tim if want to go — sorry go all the way
back up to the first slide would be great. We will go back up to the actual renderings | think to speed up
some time.

So what it did was it pushed out, that one is good, so it pushes out the wall from the second floor up about
4 feet overhanging with Pearl Street. Even though the reason or the re-design inside was to lower that
pitch of the balcony to make it probably safer, a better experience for people, especially if they have a hard
time going, elderly, whatever going up and down the stairs. | think everybody has been in small theaters all
the way to Gillette Stadium, you start walking up those higher levels and sometimes it is intimidating. So
that was a really good move and pick up on the architect’s point of view. However, | think most of the
Committee can probably speak to just about everybody. The fact that it got pushed out four feet and
having the overhang, made some interesting things. So if you look closer, you wouldn’t know the difference

Board of Aldermen 5-12-2020 Page 5

if you looked at old pictures versus these unless you look close, but now you will see with that kind of the
yellow box sort to speak. On the second floor, you'll see there’s an overhang on West Pearl That is doing
a lot of things, | think from a design standpoint Tim, if you want to drop down just one slide, | am sorry go
up one. That is looking at it from West Pearl Street.

So from an architectural viewpoint rather than having that straight wall from the ground and the sidewalk all
the way up four stories, now you are going to have that overhang which | think architecturally makes it
good. But | think what is really important and we all liked was the overhang now creates a four-foot
overhang for weather conditions. So people standing out on the West Pearl Street sidewalk, whether it is
rain, snow whatever, they are covered. It also makes it where you have lighting and looking Tim, let’s see
— if you go down a couple of slides it is like the angle, a couple more, a little more, that one there. So if you
look closely at the overhang, there probably would be some lighting that now can be incorporated, lighting
down towards sidewalk as well. So you will have a nice walkway along that entire building.

The back of the building as we all know remains the same, the red brick building. That doesn’t change
character wise or the architecture. It’s really where the Alec’s Shoe Building and that is where the
overhang will be. Once it gets beyond that then that’s where the overhang would stop. So | think that’s the
key difference is lowering that pitch inside, the rake, as well as having this overhang which | think is a big
boost. And by coincidence we ended up gaining about a dozen seats is my understanding. Does that
sound right Tim, about 12, | think?

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

Correct.

Rich Lannan, Chairman, Performing Arts Center Steering Committee

Ok so there was a lot of added benefits beyond the reasons why they did it to begin with. So the Steering
Committee voted unanimously last week to approve that design change and the architects are back at
work. So from the Steering Committee’s Standpoint, you know, it was quiet for a little while, while the
architects and the construction managers kind of did their thing. So we had a good Zoom Meeting last
week with a good presentation. So they are back at finalizing cost for the entire project at this point. So
unless Tim wants to add anything to that?

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

No, no | think Rich you gave a synopsis, | appreciate you making the time this evening to walk the Board of
Aldermen through the various design elements that we have recently been discussing. This is a work in
progress. We are pretty excited about the progress we’ve made. So we are just diligently working our way
through. With that being said, Madam President, | know part of the reason why we wanted to give you this
update is due to the times that we are in. We thought it would be good for the Board of Aldermen to hear
directly from the Chair of the Capital Campaign Committee. So with that being said, Madam Chair, if | may,
I'd like to turn it over to Deb Novotny who is continuing to lead the efforts on that front.

Rich Lannan, Chairman, Performing Arts Center Steering Committee

And excuse me, Tim, after Deb is done, I'll just chime in for about a minute regarding the Nashua
Community Arts Board if that is ok.

President Wilshire

Ms. Novotny?

Board of Aldermen 5-12-2020 Page 6

Deb Novotny, Chairman, Capital Campaign Committee

Hi, how are you? Thank you for inviting me tonight. | wanted to kind of pop in, in light of COVID and how
everything is so different than it ever was and to let you know that our Committee is still meeting every
other week. Right now we have been working on continuing to communicate with our donors, with our
prospects. We are also identifying and apply for grants. So we are still moving along. We are strategizing
on really the best way to approach prospects that we haven’t had face to face meetings with prior to this of
how to approach them now, where we can’t have those face to face meetings. So we are strategizing that
coming up with some creative ways of doing that and we are still moving along and absolutely committed to
seeing this project through this fruition.

What | would like to leave you with, or you know to end with, unless you have other questions. We received
a recent pledge from a donor and there was a letter in it and this person wrote, “We appreciate that it take a
Citywide effort to create such an amazing venue and agree that the end result will include an increase of
additional families who will want to live, work and retire in Nashua. As well, the opening of the Nashua
Performing Arts Center will result in a more vibrant and healthy community that we can take great pride in
being part of. Please continue your work with the knowledge that many of us are supporting you”. And |
thought that that was, you know, a wonderful thing for them to say and important to know that your work as
the Board of Aldermen involved in this project is very much appreciated.

President Wilshire
OK, did you have something to add Mr. Lannan?
Rich Lannan, Chairman, Performing Arts Center Steering Committee

Yeah I'll just add, you know, people may have started to see — yesterday afternoon, some of the photos, |
think four, the exterior photos, and four of the floor plans were posted on the Nashua Community Arts
website. | am the president of that board; Deb is also on that board. We now have a full 9-person Board of
Directors. We are meeting as well, and talking regular, we had a meeting last week to finalize our two
newest members. So we will continue meeting as necessary as well through the process. So | just wanted
to let you know that. But the Facebook page, people can go on to the Nashua Community Arts Facebook
Page which is current with all these pictures as well. | believe you should have all received those exact
same pictures by e-mail from me earlier today. And | don’t think they are up yet, but it will also be on the
Nashua Community Arts website soon. So | just wanted to let you know.

President Wilshire
Thank you. Director Cummings, did you want to open this up for questions?

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

You know | don’t think that that’s necessary at this time, Madam President. You know, | appreciate the
opportunity just to give the Board just a quick update and briefing as | felt it was pertinent to do. And we
look forward to coming back again in the near future, to give another update.

President Wilshire

Very good, well thank you very much, thank Mr. Lannan and Ms. Novotny, we appreciate your time.

Rich Lannan, Chairman, Performing Arts Center Steering Committee

Thank you.

Board of Aldermen 5-12-2020 Page 7
Deb Novotny, Chairman, Capital Campaign Committee
Thank you.
President Wilshire
Alderman O’Brien?
ADJOURNMENT
MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN TO ADJOURN BY ROLL CALL
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Dowd,
Alderman Caron, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza,
Alderman Jette, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Cleaver,
Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire 13
Nay: 0

MOTION CARRIED

The special meeting was declared adjourned at 7:23 p.m.

Attest: Susan K. Lovering, City Clerk

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