Finance Committee Page 7
September 7, 2016
alternative and maybe the quickest alternative is for the administration to stay where they are for the time being
and Brentwood to come and lease a facility in Nashua. Tim Cummings, the Economic Development Director,
who has some knowledge about available space is conversing regularly with people on the school board who
are in charge of facilities and seeking to assist them in locating the Brentwood project within Nashua.
Alderman Deane
We sat down with the architects and the school department with Mr. Conrad at the time and the Chief
Operating Officer and we took a floor plan of the first floor of the building and the architects went over to the
school department to the building on Ledge Street and then we had a 3 % or 4 hour meeting with them and we
laid everything out on paper and basically we got the school department to fit in on the first floor. Trying to
shoe horn public health in there just doesn’t work. We laid out public works on the second floor and the school
department on the first floor. The Mayor’s right, HKT has done a ton of work and we’ve paid them very little.
They have done an unbelievable amount of work and Hayner/Swanson is another contract on here and we
have been going toe to toe with these people for hours on end. This contract was originally up in the high
$170’s and we took a lot of things out of it that weren’t necessary so it’s been well vetted. HKT has done a lot
of work; they have done a conceptual design. Between the four of us, Mr. Vancor, Lisa Fauteux, the director of
public works, myself and Commissioner Bergeron. We have to dial this in to see exactly what the cost is going
to be because the Mayor is correct, the amount of money that was originally thrown out there isn’t even
remotely close unfortunately so it’s time to get some concrete numbers and come back to the Board of
Aldermen with some phasing of the project. We have a lot of moving parts in here with the school department
and the Brentwood School. If you put Brentwood over at the admin building afterwards then that’s going to
have to reconfigured, but the one benefit to that is that we can utilize some of the Ledge Street school
amenities. The Mayor is correct in that there is no way the school department is going to get in there by next
June or July. We gave them a good list and Mr. Vancor went through it and what you see before you tonight
for your consideration is the final document of the scope that is going to be done.
Alderman O’Brien
Just an observation the public health is also under somewhat of a housing crisis. | hope we don’t forget about
that important division as we go forward.
Alderman Wilshire
| think keeping public health in mind even if it’s at another facility is okay with me. | appreciate the work the
Alderman Deane and the Mayor have done in trying to move forward with this.
Alderman Deane
Nobody has forgotten about public health. We did look at trying to get them in there but it gets to the point
where you start shoe horning people into places you look back and say that was a mistake. Finding out the
needs of the school department was eye opening to begin with; from what they have now to what they actually
need. We do know that public health has to be addressed.
Mayor Donchess
On the issue of the public health building, the contract that we have with the architect up in Manchester, the
scope of that contract needs to be revised because it’s focused largely on trying to find rental space. We've
asked the architect to look at a couple of ideas regarding new space so we need to revise that contract and
come up with a more concrete proposal of where they might go. One possibility would be the first floor of the
parking garage over here. It was built with a high ceiling and a low floor back in 1985 to accommodate retail
uses there if necessary and the architect have looked at that and says he thinks it might work really well. We
are not forgetting them at all.
