001problem okay um we have glenn i think everybody knows you um but glenn is with frye architect he's doing a design for us he's worked with the district for a long time and um we have a few things i know that d'antoni has a seven o'clock meeting as well so if we can get started right away on the first project we want to talk about joe if it's okay is osborne is that all right yeah yeah please go ahead whatever if you're gonna switch up the order go ahead oh okay um go ahead uh antonio sure um as um by the way it's been a while since we spoke and uh i'm glad we pulled together because uh there's a lot that's been going on and this is a good uh segue into um you
002know kind of bring you guys up to speed on where we are but in addition to that um there's going to be a considerable amount of work that we are going to try to accomplish with sal and his staff pertaining to putting together uh educational specifications uh for um one of the new schools that we're looking at pulling together which is the danbury career academy and um it's it's um i just think with this cover we used to get together at least every six months uh if not sooner uh but we haven't really done that so i want to uh i want to be able to uh just bring you up to speed real quick um i know that um glenn uh has um a couple of presentation uh slides that he's gonna share with
003you but what i wanted to do uh uh and i'm hoping everybody's there because uh everybody went blank is everybody there yes okay good thank you i just the whole screen went blank um we wanted to talk about osborne as you know this was one of the primary uh focus for us uh that came out of much studying the enrollment projections uh predominantly the uh the decay to five projections and one of the things that uh we came up with and we moved and secured the funds for was the ellsworth avenue annex which has now really been uh called the ellsworth avenue edition uh that's what the state would like us to call it so uh just to give you some very quick history uh the uh actual ellsworth avenue school uh was designed for
004380 students believe it or not we found a very convenient way to put 522 kids in that school um amazing um amazing how we're able to educate them in that tight of a space but the kids are there and um the population on a k-5 for ellsworth avenue is going to be pushing into 634 in the year 24-25 so that is the reason why we are uh putting a good size edition on to ellsworth and uh we're doing a project that we're going to be speaking to you about tonight so very quickly uh we are looking at adding a total of three pre-k classrooms uh and four kindergarten classrooms uh in addition to that uh we are going to provide a substantial amount of space for the ellsworth avenue school administrative staff which has really
005been sort of relocated or pushed into other offices because a lot of their spaces is actually being used for educational needs right now so um that is sort of a very broad uh um highlight of uh what this project is about uh the project antonio that's going to be the registration center too right yes a small piece of this project will be uh the actual registration center for the district and that is actually been defined as a separate project with the state of uh grants folks but it is one project for us so yes so that's important to bring up and glenn will uh glenn will actually show that piece of the uh of that of that project in a few minutes so uh just to speak in round numbers uh the project is around
00611 million dollars for the school piece and about 500 dollars for the board of education uh registration overall the project is anticipated to be about 11.5 million dollars and uh that does include uh some very uncertain bidding environment uh that we're starting to see because of covet issues so it is a conservative number we hope that the number is going to be much better at bid time but right now uh not everybody um not a lot of people are have bid out work and we don't know where the square foot numbers are going to land so we have taken a conservative approach uh to estimate this job and that's what you're seeing is an 11.5 million dollar uh project very quickly i'm going to talk about a schedule and then we're going to get glenn
007to show us some of his uh some of his work so schedule wise and we have been working on this project for the last six months going and going and going we've been meeting with the staff at ellsworth avenue school we've been meeting with sal's group uh we worked hard and worked together and putting educational specs uh that was part of our original application which the entire board of education blessed uh i'm going back now uh oh dean was it six months ago yeah um so um it may seem that we haven't gotten together but we've been plugging along on this project the beauty of it is if everything goes well and the state continues to be able to communicate and meet with us via zoom we hope to actually have our final state review
008by march 2nd uh which is right around the corner uh so what we're going to do is in the next week or so we're going to finalize our plans we're going to meet with the school building committee um next week and then we're going to come in front of the entire board to have you bless the final estimate and the final plans and specifications they're not going to change at all based on what you are seeing tonight um so this is actually a good preamp uh for you folks to see some of that work that we're going to be discussing in about a week so our big date is around april uh probably mid april and we hope to immediately go out into construction with a contract to be issued in june and our goal
009is to be fully ready and ready for occupancy august the 20 22 so it is a very fast uh moving project and we should be able to hit those timelines pretty well we have a great record of of uh uh sort of uh always meeting our budgets and meeting our deadlines uh the unknown here is the covet issue which uh we just haven't seen what the impact of that can be uh but we're ready to work through it knowing that there may be some mitigating issues that we'll have to deal with so glenn do you want to uh uh do a presentation of the uh of the uh what this edition looks like sure okay thank you kevin um so to to start off uh with we have the the two plans the lower level
010plan lower on the sheet is your first floor just to orient you osborne street is to the left and the existing school is to the to the right the upper level as antonio has said we have the uh administrative offices and the the hatched area is the areas that are uh designated for the board of ed the registration testing uh and and so forth for the second floor so uh uh there is an elevator that that will bring you up and there's two brand new stairs that make the uh second floor code compliant uh we'll have uh um enough uh um bathrooms up there for for staff there's also a conference room a break room and then we have mechanical and some storage space along with the offices uh for the individuals individual staff if
011we can go downstairs real quick so here we have our our classrooms the three pre-k or along the uh the the bottom edge of there and the four kindergartner along the along the top each classroom will have the cubbies for the for the students um they will have individual toilet rooms and the pre-k will have two toilets to meet their that code requirement um we have uh again the elevator and if you can go down scan down a little bit towards the entry you'll see this is the the new entry to this area comes off of that parking lot that's already there um into a secure uh uh area and uh you will have to be buzzed in by the security staff that will be in that office once you're in that court or you
012you can go down to the elevator and go upstairs or you can go down that corridor into the individual classrooms the doors uh to uh to get you into that classroom will be on access control so uh there's limited access uh for other uh people that are coming in to go upstairs the corridor that goes to the to the right will lead you back to the main school and it's connecting right in the cafeteria um that's an existing door opening that's in the cafeteria so the way it works right now is the students that may be in that cafeteria may be dismissed through that those doors to the playground or it's just a an emergency egress unit but in this case you're going to come through that cafeteria down the corridor and into the uh
013annex if you will or you can go directly out into the new playscape area there's uh no real uh changes inside the existing ellsworth um physical wall changes at all so we're just making the connections for our utilities and services technology those kinds of things so we can tie everything together to the existing school if we go to the next slide glenn if i could just um uh if i could just let everybody know that um this um what is a separate building now will actually function as a uh as really one school what i mean by that is the fire alarm system will all be integrated the uh telephone system the communication system will all be integrated um so it is uh it is really an addition uh but it's gonna function as a
014completely uh comprehensive and cohesive uh school uh that's very important uh it was very important for the staff to to secure that need yep uh the next slide uh this is a uh kind of a representative of uh what we're looking at so you can see the from the parking area osborne street is to your back as you're looking at this we've got new windows going into the classrooms new windows upstairs into the office areas and you can see the the uh point of entrance to the uh to the building i think we have one more slide also um yes so from again from uh existing ellsworth is to your right osborne street is to your left and you can see how uh the connecting corridor leads into that central entrance and then the existing
015osborne street building in the background there so the site is um in in a couple pieces here so what we're looking at right now is uh again osborne street to the bottom side of the uh sheet you're coming into that parking lot um the building uh the for the classrooms um is there on your left and uh what's uh what's important here is that we're we're only taking away a few spot spaces parking spaces in this parking lot enough to put our our new uh connecting corridor there so most of most of the parking spaces will remain um and then there's the the area right now that is behind the existing building between that and the existing gym of the school will then become our uh play area or at least one of the play
016areas and i've got another slide which we'll get to a little bit more to detail that but uh just to uh um explain a little bit more uh if we can move the slide uh the other way up there you go so you can see um you can see the edge of that existing parking lot uh bus loop and there's an existing playscape there which i'm sure everybody's familiar with um those are gonna remain and we're gonna add a new bituminous play area because the the grass grass areas has been so difficult to make usable so it's going to be a bituminous area and and again there's going to be a half basketball court in there and so forth and i'll show that to you in a second as well if we can go to
017the other half of the site now so you're going to see some additional parking spots along the um along the uh left side of this uh drawing and those those will be additional parking spots um for staff uh associated with this uh with a school um and glenn i think we got 22 new spots so we really were able to what do you think we're going to be able to get that many boat uh we're able to get 22 which is really nice um so the the the parking that's uh on both sides um should give plenty of parking between uh the school and registration and will allow for some separation between those two functions and then the next site plan this is a blow up of the play area to give you a little
018bit more detail again you can see that the existing um playground which has the existing playscape there and the existing swing sets those are going to remain and we're going to add the bituminous area with some four square play areas hopscotch the half court basketball and something that's fairly popular a painting of the united states that is used in a lot of places and then between the two buildings we have the playscape which is going to be age-appropriate for for what we're doing we'll have a playscape there a swing a couple other apparatus it'll all be on a cushioned rubberized surface for safety each piece will have there's a safety zone that's required so it's you can't just cram a lot of uh uh items into that because you have to maintain a safety zone
019so um we've done that and uh there'll be some benches and and so forth in there it should be uh really really kind of nice for the students when that area predominantly is designed and the equipment is designed for a pre-k k age group right yeah and it's nicely fitted in an area where uh it's protected it's a nice isolated area uh and and um you can allow those children to play there without really getting bumped or roughhoused by a little older children which would be predominantly to your left right so all of all of the the play play apparatus is something that will get submitted to the state in in another phase of the project um but we're you know coordinating the the larger images of uh concepts of what we're doing so the
020state knows now and uh we'll we'll be back with a more detailed apparatus plan in the future um so that's real quickly a a a view of what we're doing um we've been working you know as antonio said several months uh we've had my team as well as my consultants out to uh um you know verify all the existing conditions uh we've been through the existing school to look at utilities and and how we're bringing bringing things across um so as antonio said we're looking forward to an approval in march and and getting this out to bid um soon after that then thank you so um before i move on do you have any uh you want to see if anybody has any questions or regarding it ask the board joe what do you think
021yeah the only question i had is the reimbursement still all good to go on that project yes the reimbursement um and that's the reason why we have all of these uh crazy meetings with the state is because we don't want to jeopardize that reimbursement yep so we are uh we're scheduled to meet our reimbursement with very uh negligible minimal uh ineligible cost every project has a little bit of ineligible cost but ours are very very uh minimal uh one of the things i do want to bring up to you is um the board of education space that will be used by the district on a district-wide basis the reimbursement rate for that is 50 of what our full rate is so we get a just over 60 percent so that is also eligible but at
022a much lesser amount but that's the way those projects are handled across the state of connecticut okay okay great uh anybody else have any questions anybody else amy glad so what is the board of education space in the top of that building it's the registration piece of your uh district-wide board of education and it covers uh it covers testing of brand new students coming in determine placement and things like that so it's sort of like your intake area for the entire district okay great thank you al you had your hand up too i think uh yes i had a question about uh there was a mention of a bituminous play area which leads me to believe asphalt uh did i understand correctly that's correct basketball versus a pulverized rubber or astro turf well part of
023it part of the uh area is is the rubberized surfacing but the state does not reimburse for um synthetic turf okay so uh putting the rubberized surface is something that we limit how much and it works better for certain games basketball and so forth to have the hard surface we're going to colorize it so that it's not doesn't look like a parking lot um but we find that that holds up the best i was more concerned with young child safety on an asphalt surface yeah right now that area has been producing um glass and other things and it has been a problem either got to be either or we can't leave it with grass so whatever you guys come up with so i just wanted to put that out there all right thank you anyone
024else if not uh doctor sal we could go on to the next one okay um antonio go okay uh let me just put this stuff away real quick um i guess i uh why don't we talk a little bit about danbury career academy so the danbury career academy again another very unique project this project is another project that has really blossomed out of a lot of the work that we did about a year ago when we were having very uh you know very detailed discussions regarding our projections for peak enrollment and not only the middle school but also the high school and also how to deal with some of the overcrowding that exists at the high school so um an opportunity uh presented itself and it's a very unique project to do a uh six
025to twelve school uh which will be a career academy uh at the uh summit which is uh i guess it's the old matrix which is the old uh uh what was the union car bite i think right is that what it was do you old union car by building so um there is uh there is an opportunity to take a total of three parts which are very much isolated from the balance of that building and turn it into a school there is also going to be a very a very good sized addition 25 000 square foot addition which is a good size addition that will house a gym it will house uh which will be a multi-purpose uh assembly area and also a entryway if you will uh to the to the uh 6 to
02612 school that we're building there so that project we've been very lucky to secure some special legislation and the special legislation um has allowed uh this unique school to uh to be constructed in um in a commercial setting uh which is uh what lends it to be a career academy because there are numerous opportunities for children to also engage with numerous businesses and diverse businesses that exist um in this one 1.4 million square foot of building there so uh the project uh special legislation was approved for a total of 93 million dollars and we have a beautiful 80 reimbursement rate uh which our legislative folks worked really hard to secure for us and we're incredibly thankful for them to do that so this project here is in the very beginning uh it is really we
027just started to have conversations with the state regarding how to move ahead with this project because a project like this has really never been done before uh in the state of connecticut and the school grants folks are working with us to actually develop a pilot a program and some guidelines on possibly how other communities could do projects like this so we're kind of the first to do a project of this magnitude and although there's been an interest by other communities we are going to be the first ones to do it so um we anticipate having weekly meetings starting next week with state officials to start formulating that plan and to start gelling this project up we are also initiating uh with the board of education and all the fine folks that we always work with
028on the board of ed to start putting together educational specifications which really would guide us on what this school looks like what it should have in it um so that educational spec will guide us in the overall design of the spaces and how the school comes together so we are working with sal's staff to do that and we're going to probably be starting that work in the next month or so what else can i tell you about the school what i like to tell you is that the school is intended to accommodate about 330 um sixth to eighth graders uh that that's uh that's sort of where where our initial numbers lay right now and those are directly coming from the enrollment projections uh that we received about a year ago that initiated all of
029these discussions in addition to that uh we are looking at the high school piece to accommodate about a thousand children so uh although the enrollment peaking for uh the high school is about an additional 400 students we hope to maybe take some of the existing population that's in the high school right now and uh kind of bring it here to alleviate a little bit of the overcrowding that we have in the existing high school right now so those numbers can change a little bit based on what the educational specs um will will uh tell us to work with but overall we're looking at about 13 to total student population to work in these three parts that we spoke about the other thing that i like to tell you is the pods are are very well
030isolated and will be isolated from any other entry uh from the rest of the building but by design and one of the benefits is our children can utilize some of the assembly areas and other opportunities that the summit building has uh based on how much the board of education would like to have that interaction so there's some great spaces there uh there's performing uh arts areas and all of that is available to them uh through a scheduling uh scenario to utilize that so it's a great great opportunity so this project we have to get an application in to the uh school grants folks by september of 2021. so it's right around the corner um uh the city's already initiated uh discussions on how to formulate some paperwork and and get everybody uh on the consensus
031to do a bond uh which would be able to support the application going in on september so what does that mean that means that we have to demonstrate to the state when we submit our application that the voters are granting us the opportunity to spend 93 million dollars to build this school um and and that's really what the whole referendum uh is for uh we don't go out and borrow that money all at once uh we board in small pieces unless uh the money is uh uh is so perfectly priced that taking the loan out and minimizing the risk of the loan uh in the future is an attractive option which are fine has really capitalized on that uh on several other projects uh including a sewage treatment plant right now which we're able to
032borrow money um so incredibly cheap i i wish i could borrow it to refinance my house but uh so um the occupancy uh anticipation is for august of uh uh 2024. that fits in very very well with the enrollment peaking that occurs not only in high school but also that occurs uh in the middle school the middle school peaking is a little farther down the road but having this school ready so we could uh introduce students and slowly migrate them into this new facility that sal is very interested in doing that uh again if everything goes well we might have an earlier occupancy opportunity but right now with covet and everything that's going on we feel comfortable with the august 24th uh 2024 uh because it also fits in well with our peaking and uh
033a projected enrollment uh uh so everything seems to be working uh really well um and that's that's all i i have i don't know if there's any additional questions i can get a little more into detail regarding the existing building but right now it's such a schematic and preliminary planning a project that i don't have much to share with you i i just uh one of the board one of the issues and challenges i think the board wants to be mindful of is that there is a firewall mentality between the main operation and and the school i think so you know in the design that's something we kept coming over and over so that's important the rainbow too so that's that's a very good point to bring up yes there's not only a a total
034isolation um and and what sal is describing uh you know these fire separations which are very critical and a requirement of our code but um we we are gonna put in and there's plenty of stairwells we're gonna put in an additional stairwell um in the corridor building just to facilitate additional opportunities during an emergency for children to get out of this building safely again um we got to be careful that we don't over build a stairwell is could be considered an overbill scenario and we don't get reimbursement but right now we have planned for a very large center core uh stairwell which will also facilitate another uh elevator and that will drop right down into the core entry point that we described which would be a complete safety checkpoint uh for for everything uh as
035you know parking is uh is also going to be dedicated parking for this school so there'll be dedicated parking for students and for teachers uh and that is part of the agreement that the developer has offered to give us so there'll be plenty of parking uh directly and covered parking directly accessible for this building the uh the other thing you know before mark left and um one of the things we talked about because you just mentioned it and i'm sure the board's thinking the 93 million dollars is not what we're spending but that has to be the referendum on approval that's not actually that's not that's not the tax dollars from danbury is that correct well it's the price tag is 93 million that includes everything from design about 80 percent of that uh and
036very close to 80 percent is is going to be the base reimbursement so uh you know we're only paid for 20 of this building which is incredible um i think that was the point that you just can't put the 20 you have to put the whole enchilada on on the ballot and yeah it's gonna cost 20 million but i just wanted the board to realize that that's why it's got to be uh portrayed that way thank you gladys um just just a couple of things um and i know it's still preliminary and we need to kind of circle back on some of the ideas that we've been brewing and cooking up in the background when it comes to uh sort of the 612 piece we started to talk more along the lines of maybe the
037middle school side middle school component being slightly larger than we originally discussed because of the just the economy of scale that is not really there when you only take a few kids out of out of the middle school right so you still have to have this middle school staffing set up um you know whether you're have a you know 330 or 500 right so um so how do we hit that sweet spot so that it's um economically uh more viable than to kind of overstaff for a smaller number of kids so that was sort of one piece um and also pulling enough kids out of the middle school to make a nice dent in that um you know the the having a thousand uh kids on the high school side is a lot it's actually
038a lot more than we actually need um and so how can we kind of rebalance the numbers a little bit um so we've been having some conversations which of course would affect how we would design the the separate learning spaces between middle school and high school and so you know before we kind of go down that road of um you know the architectural plans and and finalizing those things i definitely want to make sure that we you know we swoop back around to kind of have those discussions uh the other thing that um is kind of kind of you know i talked to dr sal a little bit about this um about the identity of the school itself and the campus and that this is not going to be a high school but it will
039have a middle school component and that and that currently in those plans even though we don't have even though i heard you say that we have opportunities to book space in the matrix or rent space for functions i'm a little concerned that we don't have in those plans you know in thinking through them a place that is you know for that school for that campus so whether it be an auditorium whether it be a a grand or multi-purpose room of some kind where kids can come and meet where schools can meet and for assemblies to have discussions with folks coming in for careers and so right now it's a lot of classrooms and a gymnasium and a small kitchen and so you know if it's not too far down the road how do we think
040kind of you know a little bit differently about the reorganization of space if possible just putting it out there while we still have time to to make changes and to be thinking through it um because you know down the road as they continue to sell off space at the at the summit site um things that were initially available to us now because of the large fast availability may suddenly become unavailable and that leaves us with a 13 or 1400 seat school without a place to meet and to gather the student body which is really part of the identity and the culture of the school so just something to think about cara i think when we come up with the ed specs um you know there is a large gymnasium that can be a gym auditorium
041i think the specs will have to help us also uh if um we need multi experiment rooms where you can bring um you know rooms together i think that all would have to be built into the spec that's what i think uh antonia was referring to so that it could be a comprehensive plan so meeting areas um experiment areas things of that nature um would be in that specs and that's why it's important that we develop them and i just uh i just want to say this you know we uh we're right in the beginning and the you know the worst part of my job is um if i say nothing um then i'm a bad guy if i say too much i'm also a bad guy so uh what does that mean what that
042means is um we want to put something out there to get people to think uh to get you folks to think uh the enrollment projections some of the previous discussions we had with the high school regarding population that's what i just presented uh the the discussions that care is bringing up are good discussions they need to be had and honestly sal you'll have to orchestrate how many students you want there there is an opportunity for 13 1400 students whether we increase the number of middle uh school kids there and we lessen the high school that's up for you folks to sort of kind of figure out but the opportunities there the other thing i want to mention to you is um one of the benefits of going to this facility is i think there's a
043thousand seat auditorium uh that's available for you folks to gather uh that's not a that's not an uh that's not a space that's getting used every day so um that is one of the benefits there is a um a restaurant class uh high production kitchen uh should you guys want to have some big events or uh or gatherings uh so there's a lot of opportunity to be associated uh with the summit that's there um one of the things we got to be careful with is our space we got to meet the space requirements so we have to be very conscientious of the fact that if we build more space then the state is willing to reimburse us on we have to pay for that space we also recognize that because this is a career academy
044there's going to be some specialized educational spaces that were that are going to eat up a lot of square footage which typically doesn't fit into their formula so we have to just balance all of that but um these are all great discussions that we'll have down the road uh and that's that's why i think it's important as we start to talk with the state about how to formulate the the process of building a school there we also start uh talking to you guys about a net spec and and some of these issues that carrier has brought up um so that's that's that but um it will have to happen pretty quick because as i mentioned to you september 2021 is right around the corner is the um i just had a question is the um
045that gigantic lease that neuvon's health signed a couple months ago is that going to have any impact on this project or nope nothing no nothing no well in a good way potentially not from the architecture or the plans standpoint but we did reach out to someone in neuven's to start the discussion about potential relationship with with the academy so we're very interested in finding out what exactly is going there is it are they corporate offices or is it actually going to be a health care facility and if so would that be a better place to move a health and bioscience academy as we try to grow that out right it's like to make sure that the placement and the locations are strategic and that could lend itself so not from a building standpoint but just
046from a relationship a collaborative relationship so i did get someone to to reach back out to me who's in charge of the move over there and he's forwarded my information to the person who works in that area so i'm excited to hear what they have to say exciting that's very good you had a great working relationship with them too so if you uh if you do needle uh some help getting to a good contact person let us know but um they're totally into that type of stuff uh they would enjoy partnering with you guys yeah that was one of the purposes of being here to permit our youngsters without traveling to have opportunities to to uh to mentor and to observe and that's one of the powerful pieces of this so that that's um that's
047great but the specs care we'll have to work on you know i know we're working on the conceptual design for the educational outcomes and then the um the structure inside of it is what um we're going to have to come up with in terms of the um the building space the number i think is is it's a secondary school how it flips back and forth will be somewhat flexible um and i think i think the board would be really interested because as we look at middle school i think when we saw this to do it economically we have to have certain numbers otherwise it's very expensive and it doesn't really um make them uh a dent into the middle school so that's the exciting part of it uh doing all of this it'll be a
048first antonio yes sir i realize we're at the infancy of this project but you you know my background and uh concerns i had up at the clapper ridge high school where cell phone communications inside the building and public safety radio uh penetrating the building uh have you already had something in your design plan for biodirectional amplifiers so uh either the in-school radio system or public fire uh police and fire and public safety will be able to communicate on all the floors you know yeah and um one of the things that just i i just learned about this the other evening al is uh there just was a donation made for a hundred and sixty thousand dollars uh for a um an antenna uh and a communication enhancement uh that was done by the developer and
049was just approved at the common council the other night um so as you know the west sides had a historic poor communication the communication equipment in that area is very very uh tough not only for fire police and even public works but uh uh yeah that there is uh uh there is a donation that was uh just granted which will help with the entire city's communication system for police and fire um and the other thing i want to mention is we also just signed uh a lease which is a no-cost lease for the police department to have a substation uh only a couple of feet away from the main entrance of where this school will ultimately be uh be have its main entrance so um it is uh it is a really unique situation and
050when people talk about a city within a city that's really what this is starting to gel up like uh uh so it's it's a wonderful concept and antonio now i just wanted to add that we did just increase the frequencies that we purchased so the number of you know individual frequencies with our radios um we just recently increased so that'll help when we get to the career academy so that people aren't sharing multiple schools aren't sharing the same frequency on their radios and we also have that grant antonio that we're working through with the organization that will eventually roll out to the academy as well to link into the police department and all of the other danbury um radio you know yeah so that will also be another enhancement as we roll the company a
051few years from now wonderful so um i know while the board's taking in my questions we're going to start i know as i said cara is working on the you know she we all know she went we went visited um um in nashville and uh the career pathways but that and the portrait of a graduate all of that is um uh kind of a kaleidoscope coming together and the pathway academy is part of that um and we're gonna have to come with the uh ed specs and start talking to the board about uh who gets in how do you get in and all of that right that's really gonna be important for you guys that it's opened up so um we'll be coming to board with presentations for that when do you think in terms
052of a target time i think you may would you like a a proposal for those drafted specs antonio well sal i i would say the earlier can get them to us but we're gonna need at least a month uh to vet them out with you um so you know i would say august uh you know the latest for for draft for a draft copy um yeah yeah i think the board will start working working on it now you know actually because that that we do it uh the board knows when we open get us involved as much as you you like to i mean it worked out really well when we did ellsworth um uh i know it was uh it was a lot of work and we we did we did work a couple
053nights deep into the night but um you know let us know uh when you have some uh preliminary thoughts together and and we'll gladly jump in with you okay i i just want the board to hear this i know there's another project down the road can you just tell the board because that was sure i'm getting short on time so i got sure so down the road uh one of the other uh um sort of um challenges that uh we found out that we have in danbury is uh sort of with the pre-k uh population um so um right and one of the things that we looked at and came out of the work that we did about a year ago was to possibly consolidate all of the early childhood uh activities and classrooms uh
054that are needed throughout the district into an early childhood center and um we actually looked at um it was a great plane right great plane yep great plane provided a great opportunity to do what would be an early childhood center we looked at um 16 uh pre-k classrooms uh for that location uh which will allow some uh potential growth too as we move into the future and um uh again this would not be for at least another five or six years uh the beauty of doing that uh early childhood center is that it will allow the board of education to um to get away from the two leases that they currently are in uh so the uh lease avoidance would be mitigated by the construction of this early childhood center and we just started to
055have preliminary conversations with the state uh on the need for this we figure the earlier we start talking to them the better it is and there's no other school district that's doing more building construction than us so we like to just let them know what our needs are as it advances we can um so 60 pre-k classrooms uh could easily cost us about uh 17 million dollars again that doesn't include escalation uh but it is a very very uh early planning budget uh that we have to work through as we proceed uh through some of the existing projects that we have uh so again that's a very preliminary um look at doing a uh lease avoidant avoidance project uh that that would help the district long term uh with some of their budgets and also
056consolidating uh this this pre-k program and uh having all the resources in one school antonio question on that would that be an addition to great plane that would be adding 16 classrooms to the building yes yes it would be uh it would be an addition and as you know pre-pre-k classrooms really all need to be sort of on the ground floor and that's what we did we've laid out uh and we know they fit the other beauty of it is i also took that school a couple years and got it off the septic system and actually tied it into a sewer system so that does allow us to be able to really enhance uh the building opportunities at that school okay thanks antonio i realize it's early for that 17 mil but do you have
057a projected build date on that yeah so the building um i actually have an occupancy date out of uh like 2025 or possibly 2026. uh that's when we're looking at possibly occupying that building in order to avoid you guys having to sign additional uh leases uh um and and also at that point i think your population will be at the point where you could definitely utilize a centralized early childhood center thank you a lot of work a lot of money yeah well yeah you know what kids are worth it yeah i i think the mayor is going to want to have you pay for my salary and dance salary since we're going to be basically working for you guys for the next five years i know look at you you got all upset that's okay
058let's put it on our tab i enjoy working with you guys honestly building schools is something that i really love doing and uh you guys have allowed us to do some really creative projects and uh and and we love that and we have an incredible respect with the school grants folks they really like what we do down here and uh and uh we're probably one of the only school districts that when we say we're going to build something we not only build it but it's done it's finished and we go right through the audits so uh that is that is a really nice partnership that we've built and thank you for that that's a testament to you now it's it's really a relationship that we built early on you guys have trusted us to do
059this for you and it's worked out really well anyone that enjoys um looking at a project and can actually visualize how it's going to come out of the earth and look and look like it's supposed to so kudos to you thank you thank you and dan i know i got to thank dan he's back there he does a lot of them day-by-day work so uh mr britton next thing i know he uh he's got to go but anything that any questions for antonio or i'm good um does anybody else have any amy kathy you good okay yeah we can keep we can keep pushing on dr cell and mr chairman anytime you wanna us to update you um uh you know just let us know we'll gladly kind of give you an update um i
060think you kind of know what we're doing for the next six months uh but if you uh and you'll probably see us at the board of education meeting next week too but anytime you want to um have your members uh get filled in with some of the specifics uh let us let us know yeah absolutely thank you antonio for that thank you antonio thank you glenn hey yeah thank you glenn um so for the board uh granville uh let me update john granville go ahead kel um so granville we are currently occupying six of the classrooms as well as several office spaces that's the top floor um so all uh six classrooms uh were are set up for students they're receiving am and pm kids um the bottom floor is still um on its way
061to being completed uh you know we um expect it to be done i don't know about a month i'm gonna say i'm not a construction person but it looks like we've got a little bit a little bit of a ways to go um but i can't say enough um you know rich albert and his team were just amazing i mean we we got the ceo and clearance the mayor uh on a tuesday afternoon and by friday classrooms were set up and the kids came in on monday so i mean it was an extremely quick turnaround um it feels like a preschool you walk in there's splashes of color on the wall they did some um like uh some of those like stickers that have animals and trees and and fun things like that um the
062kids are loving it they've adjusted really really well um the first day or two in we did have it was a little bit challenging these students hadn't been uh into school in a while and they were then being dropped off at a building that they didn't know but once they saw their teachers and they moved their way in they were thrilled um i also um you know we're excited to occupy the bottom floor because then we'll be able to bring over a majority of our preschool classrooms there's 10 classroom spaces in total we have 11 preschools currently preschool classrooms so we just exceed the size of the building i do know at one point there was a conversation about whether or not there could be additional spaces maximized on the back end of that building
063so that's something we should definitely still explore but it certainly meets um you know meets our current needs right now to have a majority of our classes there we will remain one classroom at sacred heart for next school year and we're also looking at creative ways from a preschool perspective of doing some of our services in the community which may eliminate the need for that 11th classroom full-time you know in one of our facility spaces so um certainly what we've noticed already is the um you are maximizing the amount of service time that's being provided in one location so our pt's our ots our speech and language pathologists are not traveling all over the building you know just naturally being together in one site as opposed to three there's more teaming and collaboration right now
064those providers are in temporary spaces office spaces and are doing push and support into the classroom um but overall i can't say enough good things teachers are happy they're thrilled they've kind of rolled with it we've had a few little bumps in the road but but overall it's been it's been really a very positive thing for the city um to finally have a pre-k center so thank you do you know when you're going to occupy the other section rich put a little note in here i'm he said he'd be able to turn over the bottom floor by the end of february oh okay okay so so for the board either rich or courtney can update him it when we displace osborne and what do we have for for people to uh occupy you want to
065update the board a little bit please or so um so kelly worked with marie that's our partner over at sacred heart to ensure that we have some we have space for anne's team at sacred heart so we're leveraging that existing lease and our partnership there for the next year for albion's staff in the reservation group and rich worked with our partner bill coffey to find a space at a reasonable price just up the road from beaver brook and they've gone ahead and renovated some office space for his snap as well as um a significant amount of storage space that's needed for all the equipment that's been crammed in um to if you've ever been into the upper stories over at um over at osborne you'll you'll know what i mean that we really we're in
066dire need of space do you want to um just talk a little bit have you been over rich recently and seen the um the renovations i think it's pretty close to being ready to move in um i took a peek over there last week and um there there are some concrete floors that he's put carpeting in on the offices he the existing carpeting he had professionally cleaned um we're still waiting for the warehouse space to be vacated so we can start using that but i expect we should be able to move in at least office space wise in the next month or so over there yeah so that was great so that was uh just for a year because as you know from what antonio just talked about the osborne um replacement which is the
067ellsworth annex is on track to be on time for their anticipated um construction time frame as we stand today [Music] uh time on time is very good news more advanced notice than poor bob who you know operates [Music] yes yes we're going to move central registration elp and one person from sodexo will move over to um the cottage street location kelly will keep a classroom i have three classrooms downstairs we'll take the other two classrooms and either somehow divide them up and put in temporary stations in there for our registration folks and our elp folks and then i'd love to still have one classroom for the learning tree so that will absolutely work for the next year plus while we're out of osborne street once granville is available we will work with rich and his
068team to transition those kids over sometime in springtime this year we're hoping to have that done um on our about april vacation great so just okay and move to save getting furniture and all that stuff is is what we're moving around but i think one of the things uh the board has asked for which is going to work into is this three-year budget because we have to plan with the end in mind occupying uh the summit occupying the even even the early childhood center in terms of um you know what we have to do as we go one things the board we did when we opened stem you remember we brought frank on dr levanka on board so you may have to do that with the summit bring someone on board earlier things of that
069nature to get things going so this three year rollout gives us at least some targeting at least it'll get let the city know what we're thinking um what worked for us at um at um stem at the new place at west side academy was that we phased in so that's what he was hinting towards um you know that's that's something that could work for us uh so um you know we'll put that in the three-year budget but i think you know we have the space we've been fortunate to have the city support these new new buildings for us it's really going to accommodate our needs for quite a while i don't know if there's anything else joe um update you quick on rogers park you know we had um a customized doors front doors this
070morning that were done by a car inadvertently and i think rich you won't tell the board what we're doing so they know with that sure um the the good news is uh those entry doors were uh in the works of being replaced anyways we had plans to replace it so i think it's just expediting the replacement of those front doors um i had public buildings go over there they shored up the doors uh until they can get them replaced the left two out of the three are unusable at this point but luckily egress wise uh most of the stairwell exits are being used for the students there's only about 14 or 15 staff that are using that front entrance door we also had a broken window on one of the food trucks and they siphoned
071up some out some gas on two of the food trucks so school lunch has brought those trucks to get looked at make sure they didn't put anything in the gas tank that would damage the vehicles hey rich why don't you tell them to put the lock caps on that no i'm thinking about it i just made that recommendation to them today okay good there you go and so we did get those quotes for the extra cameras that you asked for even though it was in the back in the front at rogers park so yeah yeah and the board knows they did apprehend the person um there was no threat against the school he's just angry at something domestically and um you know just went on a spree according to chief ritenhauser question i'm sorry kathy
072go ahead sorry will insurance pay for that damage now well i think what um there's an ordinance down they're going to go after the person that damaged it but we won't have to wait for that the city will have to replace it and i'm sure he'll try to build us quite rich that's true that's true yeah but they do go after for insurance everything they can we'll work with them you know they did give us that reimbursement for that big sprinkler break two years later right rich but exactly good good the usual sorry just that uh main entrance store uh because it's the door in the door frame you're talking probably about twenty thousand dollars just for that one main entrance rich just to make sure i have i i understand it so we're using
073the stairwells on the ends to come for most of the students to come in and out of anyway so we're not most of all even using that door right correct uh it's part of part of the plan uh to open up during uh you know the pandemic we want to use as many entrants as possible ironically when i went there which we lost you joe yeah joe you're you cut out there you lost them i can't picture joe speechless um sorry no thank thank you rich when i had gone there we had used those indoors anyway 30 you know 35 years ago so the past is now the future thanks mr britain anything else i i have nothing else i'll open it up one last time anybody can have any last last questions or are
074we good all right seeing none uh i'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved maybe is there a second second mr russo all those in favor thank you everybody for coming tonight i appreciate it i appreciate all your hard work bye guys have a good night guys good night you