001Moving on to the next one, the feasibility study for, oh, now it's gone. What happened? Okay. Here it is. Okay. First off, I just want to say, I want to say something. I understand why this, you know, why this item has been a topic of conversation for the past week, and I apologize for the confusion. It's been a little difficult to trace exactly what happened at times, but I want to assure you that nobody was trying to hide anything from the public. First a few facts. My colleagues and I were previously unaware that housing was part of the feasibility report we are discussing this evening. The mayor and council members were also unaware that this was part of this feasibility thing. The RFP which we posted with tonight's meeting makes no mention of housing, but
002as mentioned earlier, the city and ICBS have increasingly collaborated over the past years. Two good examples of this are Ferdinand T. Day School, which we... We bought and retrofitted and also figuring out how to use Patrick Henry as swing space so that we could get moving on MacArthur, which has been delayed for so many years. Another fact is the Joint Facilities Task Force did encourage us to look into co-location. And during discussions, we have asked our staff to think both out of the box and creatively. Now I'm gonna insert an opinion. I think staff members have done just what we've asked think outside the box and be creative This can understandably lead to surprises It is also proactive and economical to ask for the information about housing during this phase because it added no additional
003cost to the study But this last week has made it clear to me that we need more clarity around our expectations for co-location I believe it's time for both elected bodies the school board and City Council plus superintendent Hutchings and city manager Mark Jenks to discuss specifics about expectations for colocation on school sites and work on a process by which these services can be prioritized in the way in which all stakeholders will be engaged. We will start these discussions next week at our city school subcommittee meeting. And also one last thing I want to say is that please remember that this is a feasibility study and we are at the very beginning of the process for George Mason and Cora Kelly. And the real goal of this was to just to tell us whether or
004not we had the option to build while having the kids, the students still in the school during construction. So it's just the beginning and you know I do apologize for the way it has been a crazy week. It's not what we want but we will. I think the positive is that we're working together with the city but we need to go back to the table and talk about the specifics because we've been too general and it's been open to interpretation. So Dr. Hutchings. Thank you madam chair and before we begin I do want to say a couple of words to and I'm gonna use Sarah Hoffman's words just for a second our George Mason PTA because she had talked about you know the release of the powerpoint presentation over the weekend it caused confusion and
005it also caused anger and on behalf of the school division i do want to apologize for that because that was not the intent i also wanted to be able to provide our community as well as the board just with some background on how we got to this place you know initially when we did our request for proposals back in the spring we did not have any mention of co-location that was not the intent of the feasibility study in the first place and it wasn't until about the fall around October we had some discussions around co-location opportunities. It was a discussion actually transpired between the city and the schools and in November we developed a group of staff members so school staff as well as our city city staff who met just to have conversations around
006what are some potential co-location opportunities. And you know one point that I think is is important for for everyone to know is. A feasibility study is not a plan, so it's not a recommendation from the superintendent to the board. It's not a directive. It's not anything that is saying this is what we are doing. It really is an exploration of all potential or possible options that you can do on a particular site. And the purpose of us even having the feasibility study. for George Mason as well as for Cora Kelly was initially just to look at whether we could build on the George Mason site while the students were still in the current building and whether we needed to build a new construction for the Cora Kelly site because in the current capital improvement plan
007or capital improvement program budget, it states that it's a renovation and not a new build and we were doing the feasibility study to determine really definitive answers in regards to those two things. As we begin talking about exploration of co-location opportunities, our team, when we were meeting, meaning our staff, city staff and the school staff, and keep in mind that when we talk about the city staff and the school staff, that doesn't include public officials. So that doesn't include board members. It doesn't include city council. It doesn't include the mayor because they're all public officials and they're not a part of the staff. And we typically meet, when we meet with them, it's in a public setting like this. So that is a part of the reason why the board is not a part of
008those are privy to those discussions. But during that time and the feasibility study was happening for George Mason as well as Cork Kelly our team informed this you know the consultants to can you look to tell us what are potential co-location opportunities that could be on this just. out of potential, what are potential things that could happen? Not this is what we're planning to do, but give us some potential opportunities so that when it's time for us to have that discussion in regards to any co-location services at George Mason or at Cork Kelly, that we would be able to bring some things to the table and not have to hire another consultant to do that. They were already surveying the site. They were already looking at all of our diagrams and our needs at both
009of those sites. So that really was the intent. This week's meeting which is tonight was simply to discuss whether it was feasible to build at George Mason or whether it was feasible for us to build at Cork Kelly and that is the reason why the uploaded PowerPoint presentation that was the official PowerPoint presentation that you all will see this evening specifically just focuses on whether we can build or whether we cannot build We were intending to have conversations in the future about co-locations, not to say that's what we're doing, but to say if we were to go down that path, these are opportunities that could be feasible for either the George Mason site or the Cork Kelly site, but there's so much more information, one, that's needed. There's so much more research that still has
010to be done. We have not conducted anything to state that co-location is even the right thing for a school or for George Mason. Mason or for Cork Kelly. So those types of explorations still have to happen and that was one of the reasons why in this PowerPoint presentation you don't see any of that information and why it wasn't intended to be presented to the community. So I do want to apologize on behalf, you know, of our team for having that information released. I do want to continue just to validate and just to reassure, as I spoke with, you know, Sarah earlier today, and as well as the George Mason community who were here this evening, that we intend to work collaboratively, you know, throughout this process. Building a new structure is not something that happens
011overnight. Tonight, it was never an intent to talk about concepts. That's too far. down the road for us to have discussions like that. And that was why I hate the fact that PowerPoint presentation went out this weekend to our community. So I do wanna just talk a little bit about what our next steps are, because I do think it's important for us to really tonight get back on the path and the timeline that we had set. And that is today to just discuss with the board whether it is feasible. Can we build? And then we have to begin having conversations with the board, and that's all not going to happen this evening because it's not enough research right now to have these discussions. But we do have to start talking about what are the implications
012of building and having our kids remain in the current schools. We have to talk about what are the implications if we wanted to have swing space. How much would swing space cost? Because at this current time, we do not have anything related to swing space in our capital improvement program. for Cora Kelly or George Mason. So those are conversations that need to happen before we even get to talking about what a concept could be on a particular site or what co-location opportunities that can happen. So we're going to have a meeting this Tuesday January the 28th at 6 o'clock at George Mason and this is to offer or allow our community the George Mason community to come out and to hear what I'm saying now and also to answer any questions because in a setting
013like this We get to talk to you, just like you all get to talk to us and we don't get to respond because it is a public meeting, but that will afford us opportunities to have some dialogue and to clarify any confusions or misconceptions that are out there in regards to the work that we're doing in our next steps. And then we're also going to have a meeting at Cork Kelly on Wednesday, January the 29th at six o'clock to do the same with the Cork Kelly community. So I wanted to start with that just so that we could really get that information out to the community as well as to the board to clarify some things so that as we go into this presentation, we're focusing on is it feasible to build a structure while
014the kids are in school and what the feasibility study results have given us to start that conversation. I will open the floor if there's any clarifying questions from the board right now, if there are any questions that they have. And I'm opening up the floor, asking if the Madam Chair would open up the floor for that so that... when we transition into this presentation, this presentation does not include anything related to a co-location question or how, you know, what the RFP stated because it really is a presentation that talks about can we build at George Mason or can we build at Cork Kelly. So you're wanting co-location questions. If there are any questions that board members have in regards to that I did not answer because I mean I know I gave a lot of
015information right now. So if there's anything that I did not answer or any clarifying questions that I did not provide in my opening statements if you would like to ask those now I would like to be able to answer that before I call our team up to do this presentation. Anybody have any? We can proceed. So at this time, I would like for Erica Gulick, who is our Director of Capital Programs Planning and Design, to join us and to walk us through our presentation. And this is regarding the feasibility study for George Mason as well as Cork Kelly. So Ms. Gulick. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings and thank you school board. I will kick it off but I am going to turn it over to studio 27 to kind of walk you through the presentation and
016their findings. So this is regarding the feasibility studies for George Mason and Cora Kelly. feasibility studies is something we're going to go over. What is a feasibility study? And more importantly, what is it not? And why do we use it for planning for both of these projects? And then specifically for George Mason and Cora Kelly, John Burke from Studio 27 will go through current conditions, which they've been asked to look at. Should we pursue new construction or renovations in addition to looking at? do we need swing space which was a main focus of This this contract that we pursued back last spring when we decided to use Patrick Henry a swing space. We also wanted to look at Do we want to do a renovation in addition because we still had proposed that for Cora
017Kelly and our CIP? And George Mason was proposed as a new build so we wanted to confirm that they are either new builds or renovations We also want to make sure they were in the right order So George Mason and Cora Kelly were not pursued as part of the targeted facilities conditions assessment, which told us The condition of some of our worst facilities. So we want to make sure George Mason should still go before Cora Kelly and then the swing space so The Studio 2017 will go through all of these questions as they go through the presentation. Just to introduce the Project team, Studio 27 Architecture is actually the team that was on our long range educational facilities plan. They have a lot of history with Alexandria and understand our schools and our needs and
018the challenges and really the educational adequacy of the building because it's not always the condition and the capacity. It's also is the school best oriented and configured for learning. We also have a whole team of engineers to evaluate. We know we have some stormwater concerns at Cora Kelly. To understand those fully we also have new net zero energy requirements So we also have CMTAs on board to be able to look at what's required for net zero energy at both of these schools So I'm going to briefly go over. What is a feasibility study and what is it not? So a feasibility study is planning exercise to identify what your challenges are with a site and identify what your opportunities are it's also a way so that the school board feels comfortable with the schedule and
019the budget for the proposed project I would just remind you that George Mason is proposed as the next school it starts in fiscal year 2023 so that is two to three years from now we'll be going through design so what we're going through Douglas MacArthur right now will not start for two to three years I would also welcome you to get an idea of what a feasibility study is your Patrick Henry feasibility study is posted June 11th 2015 in ESB and you will see all of the site options and the programs that are laid out in That feasibility study look nothing like the final design, but it does give a lot of valuable information that helps us plan And then what is it not? It's not a final site layout It doesn't even include the
020final program and it's certainly not a final design. It doesn't really include design elements such as materials and other items that would go typically into a design. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to John Burke and he's going to walk through more of the specific findings. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the introductory remarks Erica and dr. Hutchins and Miss Anderson I think it did a they did a really good job of explaining sort of what a feasibility study is and what it is and what it isn't when we were awarded this contract which was Defined as sort of a technical site assessment survey. The emphasis is really on studying. What's there? More than what proposing what is to be designed. We are not the architects
021who are going to design the building We are the architects who are asked to come in and look at the condition of the building look at the condition of the site look at the education specs and the Adjacencies of the building and give advice on whether what's in the CIP now is correct or we believe it to still be correct Or if we believe there need to be changes so back in 2014 when we worked on the long-range facilities plan We called for a replacement school at George Mason and we called for a major addition to Corey Kelly in Five years things have changed the capacity of the schools have changed There's been new green initiatives. There's been a lot of development in the city. And so the thought is let's look a little deeper
022Let's see. What's really there. Let's look at a school That's a replacement school at another point on the site while we allow the students to stay in the existing school Let's look at an option where the existing school is replaced in place and the students are moved Let's look at additions. Let's look at a school over here. So there's all sorts. There's been at least 10 or 12 different options So there's no There's no option picked and again as dr Hutchins said we're really asked to sort of brainstorm Come show me this show me that show me this. So that's really what we've been doing and That's where our work will end when we're finished. We have not turned in the Final report or even a interim report at this point. So we're still working
023on everything So what we're looking at to sort of make a decision on this is Three major things one is sort of the site in the context. How is the site being used? What is the context of the neighborhood? How is pedestrian and vehicular traffic proceed through the site? Where we've replaced bases where are we with open spaces? those sorts of issues second What are the building systems? How is the building constructed? What are the mechanical systems in the building? It costs probably 20 times The cost to operate a school as it does to originally build a school so very important What are the operating costs of running a facility and then finally what are our life safety? Safety and security do we have a single point that we're bringing students in and out do
024we not how do we achieve that? And finally, it's the educational adequacy of the building. And this is something, I think as Erica said, we were involved in 2014, not just the long range educational facility plan, but also the educational specifications themselves. And so do we have enough of a building to reach the capacity that we think we're going to need in 20 years? And second, are those spaces arranged in a manner that allow teachers to teach? what we want them to teach in a reasonable manner without overstaffing that we don't have to travel 11 minutes to get to the gymnasium or nine minutes to get to a restroom. So those are the things that we were asked to look at on these two schools. This is just a quick graphic sort of showing where
025George Mason and Cora Kelly are. And then this is a little map of George Mason. Everybody here is familiar with George Mason. It is in a neighborhood of single-family homes. And it has a large lot, though. It has a large lot of about 407,000 square feet. These are quick graphics that sort of try to allow people to visualize what is the capacity of the school and what is the required program of the school. So up at the top we have capacity. The light gray ball at the bottom is the original design of the current George Mason. George Mason is designed to support 368 students. The circle right above in the little bit darker gray says we have about 420 students in there now. So we've already got more students in there than the building should
026support. Looking forward, we think there's going to be as many as 670 students in the building. And so we can see that we're grossly undersized for where we want to be. Below that we've got program area, the largest black ball being the overall size of the facility that we need. And then the smaller balls within it representing the classroom, core classroom space that we need. So in the existing building we're about 60,800 square feet and we've got about 22,000 square feet of core classroom. To get up to serving a population of 670 students, we're going to need a building of about 100,000 square feet, and we're going to need twice as many classrooms. So those are the issues we're trying to anticipate. And these issues of tremendous growth in student populations are not unique to
027Alexandria. We're seeing it in every single community in which we work, all the way out to Winchester. This is a little diagram that sort of attaches the history of George Mason, when the pieces were added and how the pieces were added. So over on the right side, we've got a history and a timeline that indicates what date each portion of the building was added. And we can see that we started back in 1939 and throughout time. We've added to George Mason about five different times. And so we've got a building that's a little bit haphazard in its planning overall. The final bar in the back, which is this large gray bar, this is not to represent an addition, but this is simply to show us the massing, the amount of space. Oh, thank you very
028much. the amount of space we're looking to add to George Mason. So we can see that an addition option for George Mason still seems to be, it seems difficult to add that without creating more awkwardness to the school. The other thing that, of course, we're conscious of at George Mason is how nice the original 1939 building is and how much, no matter what we do, we'd really like to keep that in some capacity. This is the site plan. Looking at the school in the front, the traffic consultants in their report say that really it's operating pretty well right now. all things considered, despite the fact we don't really have drop-offs, we don't really have bus lanes, but everybody's done a good job of sort of chipping in and working together and it's functioning. If we
029go up to 670 students, it's not gonna function as well. And so this diagram is really, as I said, one of a dozen different ideas. And this is in response to could we build on this site a new school without co-locating students? One of the, as I'm sure everyone here knows, one of the most stressful things to do when you're replacing a school is to take all the students away for a number of years and then take them back. Just when they're ready to graduate and show them the new school So we're always looking for an opportunity to save that cost to save that stress and say is there a possibility to build a replacement school on the same site as the existing school and And that's all this says now this doesn't address all
030the very valid concerns that the community members have brought up tonight and and for that reason This is a rather awkward looking box diagram meant to assure everyone that this is not a design, simply a comparison of massing. And again, looking at the 1939 option. At Cora Kelly, we've got a little bit different neighborhood. We're very close to the 100-year floodplain. We've also got a rec center, and we've also got a desire to have a magnet school as math and science. The lot's a little bit smaller here, and we've got public open space and play fields. Statistically, Cora Kelly is designed for about 429 students, and it's under that right now at about 394. However, we expect, or the growth projections say, that we'll get up to about 720 students. So we can see that
031there's tremendous growth anticipated for Cora Kelly also. In terms of program, Cora Kelly is about 76,000 square feet with 32,000 square feet of classroom. And we want to work our way up to about 114,000 square feet and about 53,000 square feet of classroom and different types of classrooms than we have now. Here's again a little historical diagram of Cora Kelly. Cora Kelly was built essentially all at once, so it's not quite as hodgepodge. But we're very limited by the current site and so if we were looking at this dark gray addition, there's really only one place for it to go and there's really, it would be very hard to avoid sort of the airport planning on this because we can't build on top of this building and a very large addition off to the one
032side might be awkward. here also Cora Kelly's a bit unique and it doesn't directly acknowledge its property lines and other Plats that they're in the area So there's clearly some some work to be done here in addition to coordinating obviously with parks and recs and what happens with the rec center and and Sharing the rec center that the school currently does again if Zoning opportunities were opened up there might be a possibility here to build a new Cora Kelly to demolish the existing building redo the play fields and have a Utilized site at Cora Kelly and all this work would need to be done carefully within you know outside of the boundaries of the floodplain So in summary where we're heading and this has not been delivered To the board or completed but we as
033Erica said we do think that the order of the projects is correct George Mason and then George Kelp and Cora Kelly we think now with the enrollment changed for Cora Kelly Probably both schools should be considered a complete replacement as opposed to an addition and renovation however the report will include addition and renovation ideas if that is as preferred and Also, the final thing is that it is possible Perhaps not desirable by the community members, but it is possible to build in a way that we could keep the students on the same site throughout their career at the relative schools and manage the work. And then the timeline, maybe Eric could talk a little bit about the timeline. As I said before, we are just looking at this in sort of a technical assessment, brainstorming
034ideas approach. We will not be the architects that design these buildings, but rather we'll be giving information to those architects that hopefully helps them to engage quicker and faster and move forward with their work. And then our... report that is provided to those future architects obviously will not be finalized without discussion with the school board staff and community members. Thank you. Thank you John and just to go over the the timeline for both of these projects We currently have the high school project that we need to complete We also have Douglas MacArthur that we need to complete and both of those will happen before these projects happen But it's good for us to kind of start the conversation now with the community about what's the future of these school sites? Because when everyone's involved that's
035when we get the best result So I think for the next two to three years We'll be focusing on the planning for George Mason and what's actually going into that site And then we'll be working in design for two years and construction for about two years. So we're not talking about the school opening until probably September 2026. And then for Cora Kelly, we have an even longer timeline because that one's after George Mason and our capital improvement program. So again, we'll continue to work through the planning over the next five to six years and then be working through the design and construction process as well. And just to talk about our more immediate next steps, as John mentioned, they're They still have some work to do before we finalize the report and give that to
036you, but wanted to give you this update now. They're working on full surveys of the site, which is good for us. Sometimes we're missing information. We have old schools and old information, and so being able to have all that updated modeling is helpful for us. They're also looking at doing some geotechnical work with the new net zero energy kind of requirement for schools. Can we have geothermal? wells and energy on the sites. And then also giving you more fully fleshed out. cost estimates. So for an additional renovation, here's what it might cost for a new school. Here's what that might cost and all the impacts of that. So next week, we know we're having some meetings. I believe George Mason PTA is Monday night. I will be there along with, I think, some of our
037communications team. On Tuesday, we're having a community meeting at George Mason. And on Wednesday, we're having a community meeting at Cora Kelly. So some more immediate, and I think most of that will be just... Figuring out what the process is going forward and how we we move through this smoothly and how we best set up different stakeholder engagement opportunities And we will give you another school board up another update to the school board this spring with the final product of the feasibility studies So you have that report there's no vote for you. You're not making any decisions It is just information to help inform your future decisions in your future budgets And then we'll work on incorporating the findings of it into our CIP in the fall And so with that, we will take any
038questions you have. I have Ms. Jen. Oh, I have Dr. Hutchings. I just wanted to make a quick comment because I didn't mention this in my opening remarks in regards to us posting the feasibility study already. And I just want to make it really clear. I mean, we made it as prime time as we could, but it wasn't intended to be posted this soon. So this is a draft version that is posted in regards to the feasibility study. There's still more work that has to be done. Typically, in the feasibility study, we include community engagement results, things that come out of conversations from the board. There are other features that are included to make a complete feasibility study. So the documents that we posted were really separate documents that eventually become consolidated into one. We
039were just showing all the pieces to be fully transparent with the community so that people wouldn't think that there was something secretive happening behind closed doors. So I just wanted to make it clear to that that this isn't the final version, and it doesn't look like the final version. It should right now look... like a bunch of pieces of paper put together because we were putting it out before it was ready to go live. But we wanted to get that information out to the community. Okay, I have Ms. Gentry. So thank you everyone for the presentation and really just in the spirit of beginning gathering information mode. So I have two questions that I think I can combine into one and then I'll be set. But really it is. knowing that I'm going to have
040many more opportunities to ask some questions. So I have one George Mason question and I have one Corey Kelly question. So my George Mason question I think the most relevant slide might be slide 10. So in terms of the there has over the years and my time on the school board you know the the. you know, the unique historical aspect and the idea of preserving that. I also had the pleasure of serving on the Long Range Facilities Committee in which I learned that. You know there really are some very specific needs that go with educating students today in the 21st century and why some of the classrooms that were made in earlier versions are not necessarily appropriate for today. So I just wanted to take a moment on this slide to get some some some
041you know some clarification that you know And again, all of this is still, you know, to be, you know, considered and deliberated. But if we are considering preserving the historical portion, the recommendations that we're receiving at this time are that they're... It wouldn't be for school use, and that makes sense to me based on what I know about the long-range facility plan, about the size of the classrooms that are in George Mason and stuff like that, that we would need to find another kind of use rather than an educational use. So that's my George Mason question. And then my... My Cora Kelly question is, I think slide 14 is the most relevant one for that. And we have heard, or maybe it's not 14. We've heard a lot about, maybe it's the next one. There
042we go. We have heard a lot about the flood pain issues in that area. So I just want, and again, I really understand we're very, very preliminary right now. And maybe we don't have this information. But when I look at that box. which I know is not the final box or anything like that. I just, do we know enough information to know that a building could be there without a major flooding issue or is that still very much a TBD further investigation kind of thing? So, thank you. I'll have John answer your Cora Kelly question and then I'll actually go back to your George Mason question. The question on Cora Kelly is very good. And the issue is not so much are we outside of the 100-year floodplain now, but where is the 100-year floodplain
043going in the future? And that is something that we're seeing on a lot of schools. And so we would have to anticipate, the architect who did the Cora Kelly job would need to anticipate and look at projections of where the 100-year floodplain will grow. You are in the 500 year floodplain which used to be a non-starter 10 years ago, but now we do we do get called out to schools that have 500 year rains almost every year So that's part of those challenges we identify, and there'll be more information on that in the report. As far as for George Mason, you are correct that some of the reason that George Mason, one, it's overcrowded, the building's in poor condition, and third, it's the educationally inadequate. So some of our schools that were built longer ago
044than the 1950s really have those small classrooms, and beyond that, they don't have adequate lighting, and they're just not oriented in the way that you would want. Want them to be there is a potential and I think we may have some options for those where if there were a swing space Then maybe you would preserve the small portion Just really just the facade if you were able to move all the students off the site and then build kind of around that But basically the whole orientation of the building and where the walls currently are within the building is not adequate for students Next I have miss Lorber My turn yet. Thank you very much for all the information. Yeah, I my question is about George Mason partly something that one of our speakers raised it's
045Like the floodplain. What about these Springs that first I guess I'll say my own I think that the residents have made a very strong case for wanting to preserve the green space at George Mason That's a very strong case aside from that one of the speakers mentioned underground springs that make it sound like it would be unwise to try to build a school there anyway. Did we know about those? So we have not identified that but it's certainly something we can look into we've heard that at Douglas MacArthur as well that there's some We have a lot of water because we're in the city of Alexandria So we just need to make sure that we're checking for all those things and some of the geotechnical Investigation will be able to tell us what's what's under
046our ground And I was just going to mention that. I mean, I think we're too soon to start because that means we would be assuming that we're building in that space, right? So we have to make sure before we begin to invest dollars in going that far that we have a decision that we are not going to try to obtain swing space and build, you know, where the area that is open for us to build. And we're not there yet. Mr. Suarez? Thanks chair Anderson a couple similar questions to ms. Gentry's questions So I I've been looking at slides 10 and 14 as well Obviously, you know share some of the concerns about the the positioning of the box on slide 10 You know and as a resident of the Cora Kelly district the positioning
047of the box and slide 14 is right over the the Field that the Alexandria Aces play at and form our own park. So I'm sure you know that community would similarly have concerns about the placement. So my first question is about what is this final report going to look like? I think, you know, just for the interest of the public and transparency, I want to have an understanding of what, you know, how many potential options will there be? What will those look like? And as a further point of the... of clarification at the end of that when we receive that report that's still just going to be a list of feasible potential options and those aren't even going to be options that are potentially voted on by the board when they're presented it's just more
048like here's the range of options something like that so so i i'd like to just have an understanding for both you know mason and cora kelly you know there's that one maybe unfortunately placed box on those right now what what is it going to look like in terms of the range of options that are going to be in the final product that the public's going to be able to see and and can you give us a sense of your vision you know as an architecture firm and what sort of options may be in that final report with i i i believe i'm right the understanding that even when those come out in the final report those aren't necessarily options that are before this board for a vote. Thank you for the question. So what the
049report will look like is there'll be an executive summary at the front that will try to grasp the large issues of site and context. building assessment and use, and then educational adequacy. That'll be followed by pages and pages and pages of technical studies, narratives, review of what's going on in the existing building, followed by probably two or three different design ideas that will then... be accompanied with cost estimates. So if we're looking at an option between a renovation and an addition and a new school or a new school in place versus a new school without swing space, the cost becomes a very important issue. And so you want to be able to use the report to make that level of decision as opposed to I don't like the front entrance there versus, you know, it's
050more looking at these costs we cannot afford to do. a new school every year or you know so we're going to do a run of so it's that level of decision making and then that level of decision making and you know lays out your CIP and how you budget so it'll be it'll have an executive summary a lot of technical pages and then a few design ideas and then cost estimates. Ms. Green? Thank You chair Anderson and Thank You miss Gulick and Thank You mr. John and I'm calling you mr. John because we're sort of saying mr. And miss up here and I didn't catch your last name My question is around the projected student enrollment for both schools and starting with George Mason which is 670. Can you talk to me a little bit
051about the metrics and data points that went into getting that number? We have an ever-changing and growing city so it wouldn't be that difficult to get to that 670 number I wouldn't think. We're provided those numbers by the city. Okay, so we don't do though. You don't do doesn't yeah The only thing that I know is back in 2014 when we did the long-range facility plan and the projections were put forth there was a lot of skepticism that they were too high and as it's turned out they were maybe a little bit too low and As I said, this is not unique to Alexandria. It's every municipality that's tangent to the city and it's all the ways, you know, we're out in Winchester talking about how do we keep up with the enrollment. Dr. Reeve?
052Oh, sorry. So sorry. Yeah, if I could jump in on the, it feels weird when I'm called Ms. Gullick. If I can jump in on the enrollment projection. So part of that is we look at them we look at our projections school by school but also as a division where are we able to provide elementary school capacity. We know the school board has a policy to look at boundaries every five years. And so part of that thinking and also I know Dr. Hutchings can speak more to this but has kind of a goal to stand. basically standardize some of our elementary schools. So we're not having elementary schools of 300 students and some of the thousand students, but how do we make sure we're creating the best possible learning environment across the division for an
053amount of students that we have? I would just say for also Cora Kelly will receive a lot of the Potomac Yard development that's going into their school. So whereas they're under... They may appear under capacity right now or at capacity. We know that will change in the future. Dr. Eve. All right. Thank you so much for the presentation. I have two questions. First, I appreciate you clarifying that the final report is forthcoming. And just looking at this slide 10 here of George Mason, I really appreciate the way that you explained that. Looking at this, there's kind of a trade-off between the environmental impact versus the impact of having to relocate the children with a design like this. One of the things I noticed about both this and the Cora Kelly, the way that this slide
054is presented, is that the new school, in order to do the swings, not requiring swing space, that the new school is kind of as far... away in a sense from the existing school. And I was wondering if you could talk about, like is that part of sort of the requirement that would have to go into this process of building on the same site as the existing school? This is something we've done at Patrick Henry, and I know that those buildings were only eight feet apart in their closest location. So I'm curious. about that question. Does it have to be so far from the existing school in order to do this. And then the other question was about just swing space in general if this is more to Ms. Gulick if you have been continuing the
055process of keeping an eye out for potential swing space in the city should we need it. If one of these options are not feasible. No, the the new school does not have to be that far away from the existing school It can be wherever you want to be. I think this was almost an attempt to keep them as far apart as possible to graphically Reiterate that one's the new one and one's the old one so that you can clearly see and and there's no confusion that the new ones right next to the old one and it's in addition so that's that's all the that's the only reason the the gap is provided And also, when you get into the planning and designing phase of this work, you begin to look at concepts and different configurations
056of a structure and the proximity it could be to an old building if the board chose to continue to have students remain at the current school. So that would be the next phase. The purpose in this kind of diagram is just to show that... This space could accommodate 100,000 815 square feet right whatever kind of building it could be high it could be wide It could be as see it could be an X. I mean it could be all kinds of things right and we haven't gotten to the point where we're looking at different concepts of our configurations And then with regards to the swing space, I'll say two things. One, Ms. Anthony, myself, Dr. Hutchings, we're always looking at space and evaluating our space. I think we and the city have... kind of taken
057a real hard look at what we have within our own assets and I think part of our joint facilities master plan process that's also kicking off at the same time we'll be able to look at what are those needs and you know should we have a swing space even if these don't require it should we have one just for safety and security and those kind of reasons and then separately I would say that's part of the reason we do this so early because if we do need swing space we need to find it within the next two to three years to stick to our plan and so but that's how I would respond to that Miss Alderton miss Reeves question answered my question Miss Nolan Thank you so much for the presentation much appreciated. Um,
058just when you refer to the feasibility study Is there a timeline involved as to when we can expect is it one that will continue to go in phases? It sounds like this was just more of an initial overview Is that what we're going to expect or is there going to be a final report? And if so, what is the expectation in terms of timeline for the actual feasibility study? to be released to the public. You will receive a final report. And if I was being conservative, I would say that would happen in May. I'm hoping April. And it will include all of the information. So in your... board docs were posted basically all of the building condition information we've had to date and every iteration of the site diagrams that we've looked at so far.
059All of those options as well as additional information will be incorporated into that final report and that will come to you this spring. My turn. I have two things about George Mason. One, the part that you're showing saving, actually, I want to clarify what that is because it looks like it's just the two classrooms that are actually really large and have great light. So beyond that, how much of it is in the historic part that you're considering? I'm actually gonna go to a different this slide. So basically if you can see this all this light gray Around here is the original building when we were first having this discussion with The principal and some of the community members that we've heard from they were really interested in preserving that front facade so I think that's
060the question if we want to preserve it and move the kids off site and make it a school we can find a way to do that. But also if we want to preserve it for some other use and build the school elsewhere on the site we can do that too. Okay, great. I just yeah, I was never but yes, I agree. I was so happy to see that actually And the second thing is that I would just say that it's my memory when my kids were there that some time ago They were gonna do upgrades on the field there and there were water Infrastructure things that kept them from doing it. So I would think parks and recs would know something about that Yes, they probably do and they are involved in the process. So
061they begin They've started to share their their concerns with us. So Great, thanks. Anybody else? Okay, thank you.