EHHS Renovation Clarifications

This open letter is in response to some mis-information used in a few letters and posts to support reasons to vote down the high school renovation. I would like to address them knowing that misunderstandings are inevitable especially when involvement comes at the end of a long and intense 18 month road involving an extremely complex project. One resident correctly stated that approximately $7 million is part of the ineligible costs (and this has always been outlined as such). But this leaves one with the impression that cost benefit analyses were not conducted. Not the case! The state will only provide reimbursement based on 186.5 square feet of space per forecasted population, highest number over an 8 year forecast. This does not mean this is all the space that is needed-just what the state will reimburse. If we were to build a new school we would be able to hit this square footage much easier, but then our reimbursement would decrease to 42% with a total project cost of about $69 million making our current plan more fiscally sound. As with many “renovate as new projects” there are always factors that affect grant ineligibility. In our case it is the following: We are lucky to have a large auditorium that can fit our entire population of students when the state standard is only one-half of the student body. We have an extremely large 1 story sprawling structure causing circulation inefficiencies that add square footage and a 2nd story is not economically feasible. However, our team of experts came up with a plan of how to reduce square footage and utilize or re-purpose existing space much more efficiently. This resident did however incorrectly state that the cost per square footage of building space is $414. It is more in the range of $320 per space foot which is very much in line with a CT public high school “renovate as new” project. The magazine he cited for construction costs comes from a publishing company in Dayton Ohio that has never built a school. Only a local company in the regular practice of buying construction services is qualified to create an accurate cost model and, if asked, I'm sure the magazine cited would qualify their statistics accordingly. It should be noted too that this price per square foot price includes major site work including a new loop road around the school. For safety, security, and convenience it is extremely odd this was never added. This project also includes substantial costs for PCB and asbestos abatement ($2.2 million), furniture and technology ($2 million), and in addition demolition, project management, architectural, environmental, testing, bonding, insurance, legal and many other standard project fees and also including assumed escalations costs and contingencies due to the fact that the project still needs to be designed. The state is investing in this project and therefore strictly enforces its limits on square footage funding, its methods of design, and quality of specified products. Another resident stated that “the reality is 51 million is a lot of debt”. That is NOT true - and again, the debt incurred by the town would be less because of the 52.5% of eligible grant money from the state...which, contrary to what another resident stated on the Patch, is absolutely guaranteed if this project passes referendum this week. This project undertaking is substantial. The building committee has not made short sited decisions. Instead they have collectively deliberated and unanimously agree. They too are tax payers and desire the most efficient, cost effective and long-lived investment as everyone else.