Update: School Building Committee and School Committee

The School Building Committee will meet Wednesday, March 3rd at 8:00 am in the School Committee Room (36R Bartlet Street, second floor above the Senior Center). We are slated to vote on a final site option at this meeting. The two site options remaining are Option 1C (in front of the current building) and Option 2C (behind the current building). Option 2C is a phased-construction option, which means that part of the new Bancroft would be built on top of the current footprint. Neither of the remaining options would involve relocating the students during the course of construction.

The School Committee will also meet Wednesday, March 3rd at 7:00 pm in the School Committee Room. The purpose of this meeting will be for the School Committee to reconsider the enrollment composition of the new Bancroft School.

Additional notes on process:

The Traffic Analysis was presented at the SBC meeting on February 24th, but is still in draft form, so is not yet available to be posted online.

The Geo-Environmental Analysis shows there has been no significant release of hazardous materials or release of oil on the site. Radon testing will be done during the Schematic Design phase, so that any potential mitigation systems that are necessary can be worked into the design.

The police and fire departments presented recommendations as follows:
--Bancroft is currently the only school with one access drive to the site.
--There needs to be a separate access to the site, no matter what enrollment number the new school is built for.
--Due to the size of Bancroft Road (16-18 feet wide), a separate access should be constructed either off Holt Road or West Knoll Road; however, the police and fire department recommend West Knoll, due to restrictions created by the intersection of Holt and Stinson Roads.

Additional surveying/staking of West Knoll Road is scheduled to take place, after which the Building Committee will revisit West Knoll to view the area.

Upcoming SBC Meetings

The next SBC meeting dates and times are as follows:

Wednesday, February 3rd @ 6:30 pm in the School Committee Room, 36R Bartlet Street (second floor above the Senior Center)

Wednesday, February 10th @ 8:00 am in the Selectman's Room, 3rd floor of Town Offices (note: cost estimates of the 5 remaining site options to be presented)

Wednesday, February 17th @ 8:00 am in Town Offices (note: due to this falling during school vacation week, no substantive presentations or deliberations will take place, as several SBC members will not be in attendance. This meeting will therefore be devoted to scheduling issues.)

Wednesday, February 24th @ 6:30 pm in the School Committee Room, 36R Bartlet Street (second floor above the Senior Center) (note: Traffic Consultant will be at this meeting)

Wednesday, March 3rd @ 8:00 am in the Selectman's Room, 3rd floor of Town Offices

As of now, the eight original site options have been reduced to five. The five remaining are: Option 1A, Option 1C, Option 1D, Option 2C, and Option 3. Please note that we asked to see Option 1D modified in order to show it as partially or wholly 3 stories.

Options can be viewed by clicking on the link "SMMA Community Presentations" to the right of this page.

Site Options Now Available on SBC website

The powerpoint presentation made by the architects at the January 13th SBC meeting is now available online in pdf format. Please note the file is large and takes awhile to download. It can be accessed by clicking on the link called "SMMA Community Presentations" at the right of this page, or by copying and pasting the following link into your browser:

http://www.aps1.net/archives/47/AndoverBancroft_SchoolCommitteeCommunityMeeting_13JAN2010.pdf

Agenda for January 13th SBC Meeting and Draft Traffic Study Scope

Below, a link to the agenda for the January 13th SBC Meeting, to be held at 6:00 pm in the School Committee Room, 36R Bartlet Street, 2nd floor above the Senior Center. Please note that the traffic consultant will arrive at 7:00 pm, so we will not discuss the traffic study prior to that time. (You will need to copy and paste the link into your browser)

http://www.aps1.net/archives/42/School%20Building%20Committee%201.13.10.pdf

In addition, a draft copy of the scope of the traffic study can be viewed by following the link below:

http://ma-andoverpublicschools.epoweredschools.com/DocumentView.aspx?DID=1015

Update from January 6th SBC Meeting

At its January 6th meeting, the School Building Committee discussed the geotechnical analysis that is currently being conducted by McArdle, Gannon Associates as part of the Feasibility Study. The objective of the geotechnical analysis is to explore subsurface conditions within the potential areas of development on the site to provide information on what kind of building foundations, construction slabs, and access route support may be needed in the scope of the building project. The results of this analysis will be available by early February. Please note that the architects said the results of the geotechnical study are unlikely to affect any decision on where the new school should be located on the site or where the access routes should be; they will simply provide information about what kind of foundation will be needed, what kinds of slabs will be necessary for construction purposes, etc.

A geo-environmental analyst will also be on site during this process to assess whether there are any hazardous chemicals present in the soil.

In addition, the team from Symmes, Maini, & McKee presented a draft matrix for the SBC to use in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each of the potential building site and design alternatives (front of existing building, rear of existing building, and current footprint). The matrix is broken down into a number of different evaluation categories, with various considerations listed under each category. This matrix is a draft and SBC members are currently working on proposing revisions to it in conjunction with SMMA.

Finally, SMMA showed some additional draft site concepts for the new school. One concept showed a footprint for the new school being built on top of the existing footprint. The others presented were 3-story versions of the 2-story footprints that were shown at the December 23rd meeting. All draft site concepts will be made available online for the community to review, hopefully by tomorrow (Monday, January 11th). As soon as they are available, I will post that information here.

Update and Upcoming School Building Committee Meetings

On December 23rd, the School Building Committee met with architects from Symmes, Maini, & McKee, as well as with Todd Brayton, a traffic consultant from Bryant Associates, to discuss the scope of the traffic analysis. Also in attendance were Lieutenant Todd Pomerleau of the Andover Fire Department and Public Safety Officer Charles Edgerly of the Andover Police. With input from the neighbors in attendance we discussed the parameters of the study, which will be designed to study both existing conditions as well as the impact of a student population of up to 700 on current school access roads, potential school access roads (Bancroft, West Knoll and Holt), surrounding roads, and intersections. Included in the data the traffic consultants will collect will be police data, accident data, neighbor’s comments, and interviews of staff (such as the crossing guard).

To date we have received a number of emails related to neighborhood traffic concerns; if you have any further concerns, input or specific information for the traffic analysts, please email the SBC (sbc@aps1.net). The traffic consultant will also be attending the School Building Committee meeting for continued discussion on January 13th (see below).

In addition to discussing the traffic analysis, the architect team from SMMA showed the Committee four draft site concepts for a new Bancroft based upon an enrollment of 620 K-5 students and 80 Pre-K students. These draft site concepts showed how a building footprint might look on the site, along with access, parking, and field/play areas. Two of the site concepts showed the footprint in front of the current school, and two of the concepts showed the footprint behind the current school. These concepts were meant as a step in a process for evaluating potential options, and did not represent specific footprint designs from which we must choose. The Committee asked SMMA to bring options at our next meeting (see below) to show site concepts that could be built on the existing footprint.

Upcoming Meetings:

January 6th @ 8:00 am--3rd Floor Conference Room, Old Town Hall
At this meeting we will review the geotechnical consultant proposal as well as additional site concepts

January 13th @ 6:00 pm--School Committee Room, 36R Barltet Street, second floor above the Senior Center
We have scheduled this evening meeting to accommodate those who find it difficult to attend morning meetings. Todd Bryant, the traffic analyst from Bryant Associates, will be in attendance for further discussion of the traffic study. In addition, there will be ample time for community input on the Feasibility Study.

School Committee Vote on Enrollment Number; Traffic Study

On Monday, December 14th, the School Committee by a 4-1 vote approved a total enrollment number of 700 for the new Bancroft School. This number reflects 620 K-5 students and 80 Pre-K students. Members voting in the majority felt that educationally, 700 was a number they were comfortable with; in terms of impact to the site, the majority expressed a desire to have the Feasibility Study process determine whether the site and neighborhood can accommodate a building with that number of students.

Going forward, it is important to note the following:

(1) The School Building Committee is now charged with determining what impact a building of 700 students will have on educational design options, on the environment, on traffic patterns, on infrastucture, and on the integrity of the surrounding neighborhood. If the impact is not acceptable, the enrollment number will have to be revisited by the School Committee. Therefore, it is very important that neighbors and abutters continue to engage in the Feasibility Study along with the Building Committee. We encourage you to “push back” at each step of the process so that every potential impact to the neighborhood is fully explored and understood.

(2) The School Committee enrollment decision does not make any of the three potential building locations--in front of the existing school, behind the existing school, and on top of the existing footprint--any more or less likely at this point.

Traffic Study

The firm that is performing our traffic analysis (Bryant Associates, www.bryant-engrs.com) has already begun collecting data; you may have seen some of their wires installed across Bancroft and Holt Roads. However, the Building Committee has not yet voted on the full scope of the traffic study because we are not yet satisfied that it covers everything we would like it to cover. To this end, at our next meeting on Wednesday morning, December 23rd (8:00 am, Selectmen's Room on the third floor of Town Offices), a representative from Bryant Associates will be in attendance so that we can talk through all the idiosyncracies of the various streets in the neighborhood, sight lines, traffic patterns, concerns about vehicle turning radius, seasonal concerns, weekend vs. weekday concerns, etc. It is very important that we feel certain that the scope of the traffic analysis is exhaustive, so we strongly encourage residents to attend to help inform this process. We will have a large map there to refer to. We also plan to schedule at least one additional meeting with Bryant Associates at another time to be determined.