Fabulous. Okay, welcome everybody to this afternoon's meeting of the Jones Library building committee. First, I'm going to ask people to signify their presence. When I called their name where meeting as it has become our custom. Virtually. As a result of authority granted by the governor and state legislature. George here. Sharon here. Alex. Yeah. Paul Backelman. Present. Nice to see you. Christine. Yeah. And Austin Sarad is here and we are joined. By our good colleagues from Colliers and from FAA. Thank you. Anika, are you, are you present? Present. Thank you, Anika. Okay. We have, we actually have no minutes to approve. So we're going to skip right. To item three, which is the town manager report. Town manager. What do you have to report? I have nothing to report. Actually. Okay. Any questions? Great. Just to say that Sean is. I think he's at the finance committee meeting right now, but he will join us afterwards. So with, with permission, we'll just skip item four and a slot shown in when he, when he can join us. Is that okay with everybody? Okay. Thank you. Colliers Craig. Thank you for coming. Happy to be here, Austin. May I share my screen. It's fine with me. All right. Looks like Angela. Would need to give me permission. And you are muted. It has to be, it has to be Sharon. I'm just co-host. I guess go host. You should be able to. I just made you co-host. You should. Thank you. Okay. So. Here is our project schedule updated. As of today. By zoom in red line is where we are as of December 15th. I zoom in the next. Big block of effort is the design development phase. So what we have tonight is to show you a little more detail in that period of time. The design team put together. This handy work plan is what I call it, design development schedule. And it goes week by week. The activities that they'll be doing. And the meetings that they would like to have or the time frames in which they would like to have meetings. And then so I took this nice graphically pleasing. Schedule and cover it with all kinds of notes and information. But what I was attempting to do was overlay. The calendar onto this. And then I took it to their, you know, week one, two, three, four, turn them to actual weeks. And then also with the series of white and red dots. When I think. Library building committee meetings could occur. Design subcommittee meetings could occur. And so what would. Be presented or disc or decided at each of those meetings. So I took this. And put it into a easier to read. Milestone schedule or meeting schedule. And so that's what I would like to present for you today. I guess I believe was in the meeting packet. So perhaps you've already been able to take a look through. But in short. We are in this kind of gray zone, the schematic design slash design development phase. Up through January 11th. So that's one of the things that design team later this meeting is going to be presenting sort of like the latest plans. Latest efforts from this period of time we're in now. Once we get to design development, which. If we look at my marked up version of the work plan. We'll be starting the week of January 16th. That's when we've got a whole series of meetings planned. Sorry, I'm wrestling with my controls here. There we go. So. One of the things that we heard from last week's meeting and before. Two weeks ago is meeting in before as. The. The gender inclusive toilet partitions. And as a possible item for outreach. To. Reach out to the community and ask what they think is most appropriate or most preferable. And so we've identified kind of a period of time. That's when we're going to have a meeting. And then we're going to have two weeks where that information will be most helpful to have. So Alex. You can, you know, there's nothing set in stone about these, but it'd be most advantageous to the design team to have that input back so that they can take action on it. Say by the end of January. Then we've got, as we discussed last time, we're going to have a public meeting. We're going to have a public meeting and subcommittee meeting. But would also be posted as a library building committee. So that a quorum of this committee can be present without. Running a file of the public meeting laws. So that first one would be January 19th. I should put on here Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, whatever they are. January 19th being a. That is a fall of the 20th January. So that would be at least the open form of the rubble or whatever possible because that works best with Fongoli Alexander's schedule. So that first Thursday would be reviewing the value engineering list, which was decided. I think back in September. But in sustainability goals also previously decided, but you know, kind of taking a fresh look at those, make sure that everyone is still on board with them. about what direction they've been given, sort of flesh that out. So that would be sort of the first task. The next week, and you'll see there's a bunch of weeks whereas we're meeting on a weekly basis. The next week, January 26th, the design team would be presenting a preliminary landscape design. So that's something that I don't think this committee has seen to this point and actually has probably only developed to a conceptual level up till now, but they'd be presenting that. And actually I'm gonna flash back to here. So you'll see landscape, the landscape design actually comes up twice. So that this end of January meeting would be the first time you folks get to look at it, but then about a month or five weeks later, the design team would be presenting their final design and looking for your approval on it. So end of January is that first sort of look. The next meeting would be in the first week in February, the design team would be presenting interior design schemes. And then if, and so that would be sort of like the focus of the meeting, but then also if in mid to late January, those VE list and sustainability goal discussions weren't finalized, then this would be our sort of last opportunity to finalize those in February 2nd, which I believe is a Tuesday, let me just confirm. Not February 2nd, it's a Thursday as well. So it would be interior design and then any value engineering sustainability discussions that need to be happened. And then the next meeting would be an LBC meeting where we would be looking to approve those design schemes, interior design schemes. So you'd have a week to kind of ruminate on them, ask questions, we can coordinate answers over email. And then the design team be looking for LBC to approve those, whatever interior design scheme is most preferable to this body. And then one last chance to talk about and tie up any loose items on the value engineering list and sustainability goals. So now we're into Valentine's Day. We'd have another meeting to present the exterior, oops, I've got a spelling mistake here, the exterior design colors. So the exterior design materials have largely been determined earlier in design, also largely a function of the budget, what materials the project can afford, but some of them have color options. So there's some metal panel, comes in a whole variety of colors, brick is a large component, also many color options for the brick itself as well as the mortar. So the design team will be presenting something that they think would be appropriate, but we'll be looking for your input. Only a few days later, we'd be looking for the LBC to give authorization on a final design color scheme. The next meeting would be February 21st and that would be that final landscape design presenting it. And then a couple of days later on the 23rd, looking for the LBC to give direction or approval on that. I'll pause here because I see Sharon's got her hand up. Yeah, the Capital Campaign Committee is interested to know where donor recognition, like all the different rooms and signage and all of that needs to be decided by. Is that a long time from now, I hope? And so that would come in the form of plaques and other mechanisms for recognizing. So I presume, and Ellen can speak to it, but I presume that is something that can be done much later in the process. Thank you. Yes, and we can work with you, Sharon, on when we need stuff. Thank you so much. All right, so I got as far as outline item nine, February 23rd, looking to approve the final landscape design. Then we have March 16th would be, so now, actually let me flash back to this. So the color legend here, Decision Milestones is this golden yellow color. So you can see that is all of those happen in the very beginning of design development and that's so that the design team can then take that information and document it thoroughly so that we can get our cost estimate and then move into contract documentation or construction documentation. So if we get through, it's January and February, then we can take the foot off the accelerator a little bit and go back to a more normal meeting schedule. We're meeting maybe every other week. So our March 16th meeting, at that point, the design team will have their 50% design development set and so there would just be a reporting on the progress. Maybe we show you the latest plans or exterior drawings, but at that point, it's just reporting on the progress, not so much asking for input. We have a similar one in April. We can report on the progress at that point. We'll be at the 75% design development phase and then something I failed to point out about this milestone schedule is this graphic here of the open circle versus black diamond open circle being meetings, black diamond being more milestones or submissions. So then the next milestones we don't necessarily have to meet, but the design team will be issuing the DD pricing set in early May. That package will be submitted to the MBLC, same thing in early May, hoping for design MBLC approval by mid-May. And then we're looking for this body to approve the DD package. Sometime in the beginning of June, I put a window of time between June 5th and June 9th. I think that's just a one-week period of time, but looking for this group to render a vote to move forward to the next phase. Does anyone have any questions?  Hand down. Questions? Alex? Yeah, I think I mentioned this before, but would it be possible to, I think ideally, since we have the sustainability committee and we have the Garden Advisory Committee, which are both made up of people with actual expertise to advise. So I don't know if it makes sense to be posting these also as joint meetings with that group so we can rely on them and ask them any questions we might have as part of the process. So like item number two, where we're talking about sustainability goals, if anyone in this group has questions, we'll have a sustainability group there. Item three, we would have our Garden Advisory Committee, which is made up of landscape architects and et cetera. So I guess I just wanna make sure that we're including those committees as joint meetings so that they're available. Sharon, Angie, Sharon, do you have any thought about that? Let's talk. So the committees, the members of the committees, their official terms have expired and some of them don't want to join up. So we can certainly invite them, but they won't be as official committee members, if that makes sense. Alex, is that responsive to your question? Yes and no, because the charges of both committees haven't been met. So we clearly need to re-up and have other people, but in terms of what you're saying, I think that answers the question. But I guess let's talk more because I don't understand, let's talk more. So I would like to have the people that we've asked to be the experts in the room because I certainly am not an expert on any of this and we have people who are. And so I just wanna have them available from when we have questions, yeah. Okay, other questions for Craig? So Craig, you have a circle where it says number one, January 16th to January 31st and circles seem to mean meetings. So are you anticipating there will be a meeting of the Outreach Subcommittee sometime between the 16th and the 31st? That was the intent as I was putting this schedule together is that somewhere in those two weeks, meeting would be held and a direction would be given. Okay, could you just for those of us who don't understand some of the language, what is the DD pricing set? Great question, Austin. Sorry, it's hard not to use. That's okay, just what is it? DD stands for design development. I got that, what is the DD pricing set? And then the pricing set is the package of documents that the design team produces in order to get a cost estimate. Okay, great. And just remind everybody of the role of MBLC in regard to the DD package. And so great question. So the MBLC will be reviewing the design development package at various stages, but ultimately they have to review the final package and give approval to move on to the next stage. So it's kind of, we need dual approvals both from library building committee as well as the MBLC. So if the library building committee were to have some questions about something of the DD package, depending on what our questions were, it might have to go back to MBLC if we wanted to change something or we didn't like something. Potentially, yeah. But just sort of as an overview at this stage, after we see the plans tonight and make any final revisions to it, but prior to say January 16th when we're kicking things off, the plans should be mostly set. Already tonight, they should be mostly set. Great. Once we're in the DD phase, can we reassign a room? Sure, an office could change to storage and vice versa, but we wouldn't be moving walls around anymore. And does any change in the design development package have to be approved by MBLC? So the MBLC, yes, wants to be involved sort of in each iteration of the design development phase. The goal is kind of big picture as you start off and design, you've got a broad range of options and then over time we're narrowing them down. And so now the DD phase, there are still opportunities to affect the ultimate design, but maybe not the layout so much. Yeah. And then where in this process, and again, this may be for Ellen and FAA colleagues, where in this process does the local historical commission and the state historical commission get involved? That's a good question. Part of the, what we need to have Austin to go see them is pretty much set on what the exterior materials are. Okay. And so we see that happening in early in, and Josephine, correct me if I'm wrong, early in the design development phase because we really need to get that rolling. Okay. And Will has been guiding us along in helping us to coordinate that with the local historic. That's our first step. Okay. And again, just to, because I know this question has come up based on your experience, how long does the process of review at the state historical commission typically take? Well, I'll start with the local. My guess is Austin at the local, we're gonna have two meetings. Okay. And it could be three depending. And then the state, we do a submission. I don't know exact, it's 30 days, 90 days. I can check on what that is though. I don't know exactly. Right. And again, just so that 30 to 90 day period is built into the schedule. In other words, we're anticipating that. So the 30 to 90 days would be moving in parallel with the advance of the design. So yeah, we don't have like a 30, 90 day gap. But yes, that 30, 90 days would fall within the design timeline we have. Okay. Any other questions to Craig about the milestone in the schedule? Christine. Could we have that FAA calendar with or without your comments, Craig, send out to us just to have a second? Certainly. Yeah, that one. Thank you. Was that not included? Craig, did you send that around to the whole committee? So just this, no. So I just this morning, I sent it to a few folks including Angela so that Angela could after the meeting post all of these images. But Christine, I can send it to you over email right after this meeting. So you have it. If you would distribute it to everybody on the committee, I think it would be good via email. Yep, we'll do. Okay. Any other questions? All right, Craig. Thank you so much. Thanks for working on the schedule. It looked very exciting. Can't wait to really get into this at that pace and with that schedule, it looks great. Next is a report from FAA on updated schematics. Okay, I'll start and then Josephine's gonna take us through the plans and Andrew. So we had a really great meeting with MVLC. What we did is we took the comments that Sharon and her team had, we incorporated those into the drawings, met with MVLC and Craig was with us on that too. Got some of their comments, adjusted the plans. They were minor actually. We adjusted the plans and then met with Sharon. Sharon had a few comments, but we're in a really good spot we feel. So we're really excited to show you these plans because we've solved a lot of things. Great. So Josephine and Tony, feel free to chime in. I know one thing that we wanted, there's a lot of plan changes, right? So there's a lot of design things that we are gonna wanna talk about. Some are terrific and some you may not love, but we'll go through them all. Right, so we'll walk through the plans. And as Ellen said, I think maybe all of us will just chime in a little bit about some of the bigger elements that have changed. And just Josephine and Ellen, just to be clear, what is it that you're looking for from the committee? Good question. Ellen, correct me if you think differently, but we would like pretty much everyone to generally be okay with these plans to move forward because this is finalizing the plans and setting them for us to move on into DD come January 1st. Right, I just wanna add to that. So the plans are at, they're still at a schematic level. So there is still tweaking, pulling and pushing slightly. So there's adjustments we can make in the plan. So this is not absolutely set in stone, but we can't move young adult from the, wherever it is now to the basement. Those big program changes will be beyond us. But I feel comfortable that, I guess comfortable, maybe a little confident that we've got the things in the right places, but we can do a little pulling and pushing. But you're basically looking for us to sign off on these updated schematics. Great, great. Okay. I can share my screen now, thank you, whoever switched that. And I assume everyone can see my screen. So we'll start at the ground level and move our way up. The ground level definitely was one of the trickier moves that we had to work on on these plan changes. So some of the major elements, I think we've all walked through these plans quite a bit. So I'll just sort of start off with some of the major elements that we shifted in here. And so the biggest move was that we brought the art gallery to the forefront of where the entry point is for this ground level, which is towards the rear of the building. If everyone can see my cursor. So the art gallery, imagining that there's a couple of walls of glass is going to sort of be at the forefront and also bring in a lot less security issues by creating sight lines, which was one of the NBLC concerns. So bringing this to the forefront, we shifted the restrooms to the south, plan south of the building here. So we sort of switched some things around to again, promote the sight line issue that we were having. With that said, our circulation is still pretty much the way it was previously that everyone had seen. One other shift that we had done was switching or shifting the small meeting room a bit. Again, hoping that we can have some glazed walls to promote the visibility and the security concerns as well. We shifted, the meeting room is in the same location, but we did shift the support spaces for the meeting room to plan south. So the kitchenette and the coat room is now in this location here. And the kitchenette can still serve the larger meeting room directly, but now also has access in the corridor if it needs to be used for other functions, for the art gallery or the small meeting room. It's in a central location and I think now they'll be able to access it a little bit easier. If Sharon is clapping her hands, that's great. And so we kept these special collections. Again, just land east here, it's just pretty much taking up the whole east wing of the building at the ground level. And we sort of rotated and shifted some spaces around the facilities and maintenance area sort of got shifted. Clockwise, as we were trying to reconfigure some spaces and get the square footages in that we needed. With that said, we still have mechanical space in generally in the same location that we had previously. A couple of other smaller moves that we shifted the friend storage to the central location in the main portion of the building. And I think that pretty much covers most of it. We did do the rotation of the Civil War tablets and the special collection exhibit here that we had talked about a couple of times previously, but we now finalize that. And we did create a circulation core here to get to the special collections workroom and the reading room directly from the other program elements of the special collection area down here. So that pretty much quickly sums up the major changes on this level. If anyone needs for me to zoom in here to see it better, I can do that. And if anyone has questions on this level, feel free to throw them out now, I think before we move on to the next level. Sure. Paul. Oh, go ahead, Ellen. No, I just wanted to say that this had solved the biggest problem issue that MBLC had is that opening up, moving the gallery where it is and really creating more visual sight lines really solved their security issue. So I think, I know Sharon feels comfortable with it and it should feel like a secure place for any patron down here. Okay, Paul. You're muted, Paul. Thank you, Austin. So there's three questions. What were the security issues that MBLC had? Oh, Ellen, you're muted. It's based on visual sight lines and kind of places that people wouldn't go to on a regular basis. They could be hangout places where we don't want people hanging out. So it's like what we... Hockets almost, if you will. Yes, good. Yeah, that's a good description, Josephine. And you've addressed that in this plan. Yes. Well, we have staff. Can you point out whether staff is, there's... Well, so we do have a glazed wall at the library specialist area, which when they really liked that move and so that's one location. Then, of course, the art gallery is, there will be a lot of glazing. So we had the restrooms there previously, which would have been all solid. So it would have promoted those pockets again, but then we also have glazing at the small meeting room here. And ideally, this is glazed as well. And then we will have some openings in this wall here to connect these spaces as well. So you solved it by putting glass in, basically. So, okay. It's really the biggest shift is the art gallery moving with the restrooms. In the restrooms, yeah. Fantastic, thank you. My second question, if you already identify this library specialist, that is a glazed wall so people can see in and out of that? Yes. Okay, that's good. And my third question is, are there any exterior windows? I don't really understand them on the large meeting room. We do have windows on this wall here. I know it's hard to see here. Is that where your projection screens are as well? If I can chime in, I think Paul, we may end up evaluating it and rotating where the projection screen is, but we may reorient, do a 180 with the layout, but this, and we'll play with that because we know we need to have, we can't have too much light coming in. But that's a good question, yeah. Yeah, it is. The other item to add to Ellen's comment is we do need to look at the grading and where we can get windows in the space as we are sloping down back there. So we just need to examine that in DD as well. Yeah, I mean, if we can fit windows, and I think that's important. And I think you could even look at 90 degree on the left side of the building. And my third question, my last question is, is there, there's no direct connection between the art gallery and the large meeting room. So if there were a reception in a large meeting room for a gallery, you would have to go out to the doors versus being able to migrate right between the two, right? Currently, yes. It seems like we're sort of losing an opportunity to expand both the large meeting room and to use large meeting room as an accessory to the art gallery who don't have any kind of connection between those two spaces. One thing, Paul, we did talk about that. There's two concerns with that. One is if it's a movable wall, acoustically, they really don't work. You wouldn't be able to have something in the art gallery and then having a lecture going on with this movable partition, even if it's closed, you're gonna get sound transmission. And the other thing is we need wall space to hang art. And the mission here is we have quite a bit of glass on the two short ends and we're still gonna need some on that longer side on the corridor. But, and I think Sharon, her and her team were not keen on having that connection between the two. Yeah, my only concern is wall space. I love what Paul is suggesting, but I don't, with those two ends being glazed, I'm losing that opportunity for art to be hung. I wasn't thinking of a movable wall, but I was thinking like a double doors or something that you would mostly be closed but could be open, I don't know. It just seemed like if we ever have a large event we lose the opportunity, but I understand what you're seeing about the wall space. Yeah, definitely. Great, thank you, Paul. Christine. Yeah, I haven't seen any of this in a couple of months at least. And I can tell a lot of hard work and conversations are going on, it looks good. I was just wondering where the Civil War tablets went. Just wondering about that. I've been out of the conversation for a long time. And my second question has to do with the bathrooms. There's only the open gender one section there. There's no family bathroom or anything on that floor for people to have an option. I know space is tight, just wondering. Yes, so the Civil War tablets is pretty close to where we had it previously. We just rotated the orientation of it. So it's right here where my mouse is. Can you see that? I can't see the words, but okay, thank you. Yes, so generally it's in the same general location. And we did sort of touch on having a family restroom at this level, I think at the last meeting. We did. Yes, we didn't manage to squeeze one in for this round, but we can certainly look at locations where we could potentially get one in, whether it's staff or family restroom, not sure, but I'm sure we could probably find a spot to squeeze that in. One thing, Justine, I would wanna point out is the core of our challenge was the small meeting room, the bathrooms, the gallery, and then the large meeting room. There's only so much floor space, we can get out of that, right? And it may be, Justine, it may be difficult to locate a family bathroom there, but there may be somewhere else down the hallway that we can. Right. Justine. There's somewhere on that floor, especially if it's closed off in the evening for events, I guess that would be ideal to get people the options. And just some more table or table room now that I see that. Are those doors, window, I see the door, but windows just, are we still planning on putting them on the walls and is there enough wall and is anything else going in that room? Or is it just going on the walls? I think we need more program information on that. Don't we, Justine? That's correct. Yeah, I don't think that was decided whether it's going on walls or not. The door you see here is access to the room from the main circulation. Correct. Correct. Thanks, Austin. So on that topic, I think when we last met with the Civil War tablet group, there was talk about making it what that space wanted to be and how it would be arranged. And at that time, the design team asked for further input. And I think that that group was gonna go away and sort of talk amongst themselves, come up with a plan, sort of like a, almost like a museum curation type of plan and then feed that information back to the design team. And then the design team will incorporate what's needed to support that. So if that process hasn't begun, now would be a great time to do that. Sharon? I'll reach out to Dave Zomek. Great. May I ask a question about the flow on this floor? So I really like what you've done. I think it's great. But if I was coming in the back door, but I didn't wanna go to the meeting room and I didn't wanna go to the museum, how, I see what the flow is, but how much of a distance is there between the back entrance and the, where the gallery wall will be? We could probably. Back entrance gallery wall. Right there and the gallery wall. No, no, no. Sorry. Go back to the back entrance. Yeah.  How much of a distance is there? Andrew could probably spit that off on the top of his head. Eight feet. Approximately, probably. Yeah. It's eight feet. So the only question that I have is the feel of coming. I don't wanna go to those rooms. I wanna go up the stairs. And what I confront in front of me is this glass wall. And again, it may not be an issue at all, but I assume that a lot of when the library's open, that back entrance is gonna be used for people who wanna go upstairs. And I wonder whether you have any thoughts about that. What we're not showing here is a set of doors just being shown. Austin, yes, right there. Cause this has to become, and we apologize for not having that. We have to create a vestibule for the energy code. So you would come into this vestibule. So that dimension, Austin, eight feet. We adjust that. We can look at that. Okay, but it's gonna be a vestibule-like entrance. Okay. Yeah, it got lost somewhere in the mix. All right, that's helpful to know. I would suggest we've actually increased the width. The rear entrance could become a pretty important primary entrance for all hours. And I think to your point, Austin, just by sliding the gallery down a little bit, as you see, we have room to the south of that. Easily move this whole gallery down a couple feet without harming the layout. And I think to your point, it's gonna improve the entrance. Yeah, well, that's my concern is that we recognize that when the library is open, that back entrance is gonna be used a lot. And we wanna make sure that it's an easy flow into the rest of the library. Paul Backelman. Yeah, I really appreciate you pointing that out, Austin, because I think that's a great solution, Tony, to move that art gallery down. I think that where it says vestibule, that that is gonna be a high gathering place, because people, after an event, they stand out there and put on their clothes or whatever, they start to get in, they talk. So having a little bit more room where that's not just a hallway would be really helpful, I think, in terms of circulation. Okay. All right, any other questions on the ground floor? And again, I think that the work that you've done here is really remarkable and really great. And I love, actually, the location of the Civil War tablets in relationship to the art gallery. I think that's really, really wonderful. All right, you wanna go up a level? Great, let's go up. All right. So we're at the first floor. Yeah. So you'll see that the biggest change here from the colors you probably remember last time is what's happening with the purple. So to not necessarily walk through the entire floor plan, the biggest change is that we did shift the young adult. That was the biggest request per staff comments, shifting the young adult to the second floor. If you recall, the young adult area used to be the space here. And that's in the double height space with the barrel vaulted ceilings. And it's a very nice room that is now sort of more dedicated to the adult fiction space. And we managed to squeeze the adult fiction all on level one. So all of the purple that you see here is all of the adult fiction collections and seating. By the way, just for the sake of those of us that are amateurs, is squeeze an architectural term. It is, absolutely. We use it every day. Well, the reason why I meant to kind of, I don't wanna come away with the impression that things have gotten squeezed. Right. I think you mean that you've managed to place them. We managed to place them, but Sharon did do a good job at squeezing down her collections. Okay, all right, keep going. But yes, the one thing though, we also did was we had some locations that were three stacks high and we made them five, which is, we could even go to seven, but we thought would go to five. So that helped reduce the number of actual bookshelves. Great, terrific. Yeah, Josephine. With the reduction of the collections and some other shifts, it does all fit here. Very nicely. And you'll see that we do, as Ellen mentioned, have a couple of different heights for the shelving, which can also be rearranged. What we did here was the space is really special. So we wanted to sort of make it more special than just have shelving thrown in there. So what we did was create a reading room here. And we'll show you a rendering of that later. So that was the biggest shift here. We did move around a couple of other elements in the main space, but not too many major shifts. We connected the circulation desk with the main circulation desk with the youth circulation in this area here. And that was actually, I think comments from both MVLC and staff comments. So I think this is gonna be a good move for everyone and having that connection is important. Another element that we shifted around here was just locations of self-checkout and a couple of other elements just to open up this main stair, which is going to be a centerpiece here of this space. And I think we improved the flow of circulation in this space as well by some of the shifts that we did do. And I think that pretty much covers the more of the major changes, a couple of things in the CERC work area that we added back, which we're missing previously was the safe and a fireplace that's there right now. So we sort of indicated where that is. It changes the CERC work area a bit, but we'll get more into that in DD and how that's all gonna work with the material return. Great. Questions on the, thank you, Josephine. Are you done on the first floor, Josephine? I think so, yeah. Questions on the first floor, Paul Backelman. So that area you were just highlighting with the fireplace, what is that staff space and not open space? So this is all the CERC work area slash material return. This was all one open space previously, sort of was split in the middle with these historic elements that we brought back. We do have a connection that enables the pass through, but it is right now these items are breaking the space. So those fireplaces and staff areas not open to the public to see, right? That's correct, yeah. My second question is up, I don't really, can't really read it, that where the gears are in the middle, and Gary, that they are, yeah. Is that like a cafe or something like that? It is, yes, it's the cafe gathering area. So is the intention to have like coffee service or is that a bring your own type thing? Is there gonna be somebody selling coffee there? No, it's bring your own. Later on down the line with a different library director and different staff, the opportunity, the flexibility is there if somebody wants to come in and sell stuff, but when we start now. So I'm glad you're saying that because someone has said, oh, they're building a cafe into the library and it's gonna rob the business in downtown. So that's good, that's great. And the stairwell right next to it, that's an open stairwell. You said it's a design feature. That's kind of an exciting thing that you're gonna feature. Yep, yes, it's an open staircase. We're assuming right now glass railings, but in DD we'll get that squared away, but it is an open grand stair. Okay, thank you. From there, you can see the sawtooth roof.  Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't. So I just wanna ask a question about the visibility of the main circulation desk from the front entrance. So when I walk in that front entrance, again, there's a kind of long way that I go before I come across the circulation desk. And I take it that I would imagine you're gonna, we're gonna deal with this with signage of some kind. So when I come in, I'm gonna see some sign that's a circulation desk here or something like that. Yes, we're finding signs. Right, and we have preserved the wonderful staircase right at that entrance. I see that, that is, that's really great. Can you, you're gonna show us a rendering of the reading room as you said later on? Yes. Okay, I'll hold my question for that. Other questions on the first floor? Paul Bachmann. Yeah, so I guess that's, this is the main entrance where it says the vestibule, right? Yes. So our main entrance is you walk in, you're looking at brand new building and you're walking through this sort of tunnel before you get to the big open space. Is that sort of the feel we're gonna get and present to people? I wonder if that's what we really wanna be saying to people. I wouldn't describe it as a tunnel. I would describe it as a gracious hallway. But I kind of mean that. I mean, in a sense, right now when we walk in, you know, there's a beautiful stairway, there's art on the wall, but it is, it does look like, I mean, is it any longer than what we have now? No, no, exact same. Right. But thankfully, and now you'll be able to see the circulation task as you walk in. Yes. You know, once it's renovated. It's, you know, Paul, it's the 1928 building that we have to preserve. So the gracious hallway will remain. Yes. All right, other questions? All right, so let's go up a floor. Okay, second floor. Here we are. So again, hitting the major elements, you'll see that this is no longer all purple up here and the YA has shifted up. So we have now introduced YA in the new wing in the addition of the second floor. It's here in the southern portion of the addition. We are introducing glass walls. So we can sort of still keep somewhat of an open feel at that upper floor.  And so we do have, again, renderings for you to see, to have an understanding of what that feels like. So shifting gears here, we did get all the adult nonfiction on this level. And as you can see, it all fits very comfortably. The shelving and all of the furniture arrangements. So we introduced a new bathroom core, which is right along here. It's the gray core that you see. That's sort of breaking up the YA and the adult nonfiction space. And we shifted some of the furnishings around as well from what you had seen previously. And just a couple other shifts that happened here is that we brought the ESL to this location here. And we shifted the administrative suite into the space here. So those were the other two big shifts on this floor. I think the other items pretty much have remained where you had seen them previously. And I'm not sure, Ellen, if you have any other comments on this floor. No, I think you've covered it, Josphina. It was quite a shift. But again, you know, we work with Sharon, we work with the MBLC. We seem to get things settled where everybody is happy. Yeah, can I just say, I just want to say, so FAA, y'all knocked it out of the park with this version. This is genuinely functionally speaking, this is the best set of plans layout that we've seen since the beginning. In this sense, time has been good to us because we have seen a lot of different versions, but it's really been great. You guys have been so patient with us and it's going to make a difference, you know, when we do the big reveal. So thank you. Great, great. Thanks, Sharon. And you just remind us of an issue that we've talked about before, and that is the question of accessibility. So the elevator. Sure, yep. So we still have two different levels here on level two. We have these stairs that indicate that change there. We do have the elevator that hits both this level and this level, and we had introduced this ramp here. So you would come around and go up the ramp to get to this level. Okay, or if I'm in that elevator, I can go out the back door directly to that level. Yes, this elevator will hit both levels. It'll be a front and rear elevator, so it will have multiple stops on it. So again, just so I'll understand, there'll be like level two and then level two A. I mean, will it be different buttons? Correct. So it will be like two and two A. If we keep it just, you know, in simple terms, yes, it'll be a two and two A. Right. Okay. Yeah. Christine. I have two questions. One, I'm just not clear. Is the bathrooms, is it straddled on both sides by the youth services, you know, on the upper side, that orange? So is there a separation? Like if there's like two rows of youth books and then it goes right into nonfiction? That was a request by Sharon and Sharon had great logic on why. Do you want to explain the logic on that, Sharon? Yes. So, well, to be fair to me, I didn't ask that the bathrooms be put in between, but I understand why you're doing this. So what the teen librarian came up with are amazing Cecilia Joseph. So teen spaces, you really try very, very hard to limit them to teenagers. But if you keep the collection in the teen room, then it stops adults and younger children from accessing it. So here is the same amount of square footage dedicated to teens, but we took the collection out of the actual walled-in space. That way everybody can access the teen collection, but it's right next door to the... You just know that room is meant for teenagers. If you're my age, you don't belong in there, unless you're shelving the books. Christine. And then the other one is where the shift in the floor happens. You've got stairs and then I see a ramp. And then there's just this blue square area. Is that fence like a railing? Yes. And do you have to have stairs and a ramp? It just seems like so much going on there. No, we don't. We don't want the ramp from an architectural point of view, because it takes up square footage. MBLC hates ramps, but it was a request by the committee to have the ramp. We can do it without the ramp, I'm sorry, we can do it without the ramp or without the stairs. We think we need one or the other. We prefer the stairs from an architectural standpoint. But it's your library, so whichever you prefer, right now we have two. We don't have to decide that today. I think we have some... We'll have some renderings for you that can help, you know, the group's decision on that. Christine, I just wanted to ask one quick question about this, if I may. Is that okay, Christine? Sure. And just following up on Christine's question about this, does that kind of principle of universal design say you wouldn't have stairs if you have a ramp? I mean, it signals something, right? Well, we... We usually have both. So it allows those who don't need to use the ramp. No, no, but my point... I'm sorry, go ahead. See, what you just said is what I want us to think about. Is there two categories of users? There's then people who need to use the ramp and then people who don't. And one possibility is to say everybody uses the ramp. Yes. And that way you're not signaling like you've got two... I mean, if this is what we end up doing, you've got two categories. If it's a matter of getting up of this, why don't we all use the same thing? That's a preference. You know, personal preference. And again, it's for your group to decide. If personally I have the choice, I'm taking the stairs because it's shorter. I'm thinking about accessibility and what I'm calling universal design. Which is just... I mean, again, it's up to the committee. Why have this... People who are not in wheelchairs, you can use the stairs. And then we've got this thing for people who are in wheelchairs as opposed to saying we actually have one thing, one way that goes up these things and everybody uses it. Sorry, Christine. So I was wondering how wide that ramp is. And then there's this extra space and you wouldn't run it all the way across because it just seems like... Josephine, do you want to just walk through the ramp? There's a landing and et cetera. It's just code requirements for a ramp. You have to have a certain amount of space at the bottom and at the top. So you would come into the space, which would not be ramped. And then the ramp would start here. And so the top landing would be here. So basically you're getting a top and bottom landing. So that's what you're going to do. And that's the minimum. That's the minimum. And so there'll be a rail or a guard across that. There's a space for the landing. Then you have a railing. And then there's a space for the stairs. And can you refresh our memory on how high this area is we're talking about and how many steps exactly are there? We're currently showing three risers. And yeah, we're approximately 21 inches. Sorry, just go ahead. And how long is the ramp to answer Christine's question? It would be 21 times 12. 21 feet. Yeah. So it's not, it's, it is what it is. And I, I, I don't, I think we need to study it a little bit more for you guys. Okay. Okay. I do your point off Austin's a good one on the QT. We looked at just a ramp, but we can show you that in DZ. Okay. Great. Christine. Thank you. Thank you. Paul. This is a very interesting conversation. And just to be clear, you, you would say we don't need the ramp because we already have the elevator that could go up those 20. Yes. We were down low. You say, Oh, I want to go up there. I'll take the elevator 21 inches. Okay. Okay. If I were in a wheelchair or if I'm a carriage or something like that. Yep. Yes. Yeah. And I think the thing also to keep in mind. To Austin point. About people in wheelchairs, but it's not, it's people. On crutches or someone who's has trouble with stairs or someone who has visually impaired. So it's, it can serve a, you know, a variety of people. Yeah. And the ramp has to initiate from the location where it is. It can't move farther to the top of the page for instance, right? Because that's where the division is. So it has to be. It has to be oriented the way it's oriented. We're trying to. The footprint that we have is at the height that it's at to sort of raise it up to get. A better ceiling height at the first floor. So the more space that we have, that's at the upper level, but better off we are at the lower level. So we were trying to just keep it tight to that axis because of that. So, I mean, it can play around a little bit, but if we move the page north and that will be, that will impact the ceiling below. I mean, when I first looked at this and heard that we didn't need the ramp because of the elevator. So why don't we, why don't we use the stairs as a design device that's something that's really attractive that we sort of emphasize. And one is just something for you to think about not to respond to today is wonder if there's some, some way we can use a ramp as a creative device that makes it look really cool to that people would want to walk me down. It's supposed to be in a utilitarian way to get down. Right. We'll do. Yeah. I think that we really want to make sure that we're as we will Sharon will certainly is that we make sure that people in town that think about accessibility really are comfortable with this design that they may be. I mean my little thing about you don't need stairs if you have a ramp because it's just getting up just getting up a level. They may not feel that way. But at some point we'll want to make sure that folks have had a chance to weigh in on that. Anything else on this, on this, on this level. I was so used to the coming up the stairs and this wide open. Oh, yes. Yeah. So, but again, I just want to make sure so that team room is imagined to have a glass wall facing the grand stairway. Yeah. Yeah. Right now this is shown as glass. We have to, we have render. Not professional rendering. We do, you know, these snapshots that Andrew and Josephine did from Revit and is this a good time? Josephine, you think we just have one more floor stairs. Not much. Oh, right. You're right. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. And then we'll jump right into the rendering. Okay. Okay. Let's go up a level. Again, not too much up here at this level, but it's still the staff break room and the board room. We did a little bit of reconfiguration here on the staff break room, but pretty much is taking up the same general footprint. We sort of separated out the locker area and the, the restaurants to sort of make it a little bit more private. Separating it from the staff break room kitchen and seating area. And we still have the connection to the elevator here. So that all remain the same. Okay. Sharon. I just wanted to take a moment to be excited about the fact that that second small elevator is gone. That's a big deal. And I know it was hard for you all and, but I think it's really an important thing. So thank you. Great. Paul. So a few questions. So the board room is available to the public or schedule, for instance, that's not exclusive to. But it's just okay. And I'm sorry, could we go back to their two questions. One is the staff offices, like the director's office. Where is. I didn't really notice where that was. Right here. Okay. Okay. So that's what that's the administrative. Yeah, this is the suite here. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea from this location. And could you go down one more floor, please? And I think one of the questions I have, maybe there's a programming thing for Sharon. Is that one of the things that I always like when I walk in the library is seen. Like. The most recent books and, and, you know, the staff recommendations and stuff with your frequent loop user. You like to see what's what came in this week. Where will that be? That's in back of the gears. Okay. And Sharon, have you thought about, you know, how we are having, we tend to have. Craft responders or social worker or some different people service serving people in this space because it becomes more than a library is its community space. Yeah, totally. So, you know, as was in the original building program space for a social worker and residents is what we called it. We throughout the years, we don't need. We don't want a separate office for that. So, so it will be through, you know, furniture. We will put a table so that there is a place for the crest responders. Thank you. In the, in the blue to the top right. Yeah. The middle area is a soft seating that's just open. Yes, that could be a place where library patrons meet. Or a social worker that's a flexible space on this floor. For meetings discussions like that. Thank you. And just as Paul to go back to the first question you asked. That room on the third floor is not the board room. It's the Goodwin room. And it would be available as it has been. We should definitely change that name on the. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because because it is, it will be used in the same way that is used now. And the idea that it is a board room gives more significance to the board than the board has. It's a, it's a. It's, it's a place that can be used by, by anyone. Yeah. Now Sharon, just to be clear, really, I'm sorry to keep on that. So right now we have valuable things in that room. And so that room is locked. But I take it once we've gotten. That room will be open. It'll still be locked. Just like all of our other meeting rooms, it'll be put through a whole request system and calendar. Yeah. Reservable. Okay. So it's not a place where if I'm a patron and I want to go sit and read that I would naturally. Migrate to it's, it's really for meetings. It'll be for meetings. Great. Thank you. Any other questions about the third floor. Okay. You're going to show us some renderings. Yes. The first one will take you through to the meeting room. Great. The reading room at the first floor. Oh my goodness. So this is what used to be the young adult space is now the. Adult reading room. So. We sort of brought in these two windows here that are. Overlooking or the ESL is overlooking the space here. Back here is where the ESL is on the second floor. And these two windows are sort of mimicking what's happening behind us. There's a couple of original windows at this height on the other side. I don't know, Tony or Ellen, if you want to speak to this room at all, but. This is what's currently. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Justine. What's in there currently. Right now. Those are stacks that are seven, seven stories high. Right. And this, and we can thank Sharon for this because she pushed us to do this. And I think it's a great idea because it's a wonderful space. And as we evolve it more with, you know, what kind of seating and soft seating and a mixture and, you know, there'll be some stacks in there, we would recommend, but we think it's a great idea and we can accommodate it. Also in this view, those are elements that are caught up. Those are also windows moving up above. And that will admit tremendous amount of life. This is going to be one of the favorite spots in the library for patrons to go. Without a doubt. Yeah. Again, just so I'll understand this is. Imagine to be open all the way to the. Back of the new addition. Yes. So it has this, has this virtue of being kind of enclosed in the sense of when you're in that reading room and that vaulted ceiling, but also there's kind of open. To the rest of the. The new wing. Correct. Could you switch to the plan quickly just so we can. Make just so that's clear. So just point out where the. Like the frame of the walls are, and then we can have this through there. Yeah. So, so this is the room. The view is taken right from the center here. Yeah. Straight up. And so you're seeing that wall there. Yeah. Paul, did you have your hand up? That was my question. Where are we? I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Any questions about the rendering? Okay. So we'll. Move on to the next. We wanted to sort of pull you back to the original rendering. Yeah. To remind everyone. Just we want to show the difference of, of, you know, what the impact is of bringing the Y to the top floor. Yep. So this is the original rendering. And so this would be pretty close to the same angle. Of the new view. This is the glass wall of the YA that we were pointing at previously. This core here is the bathroom core that we had shown. And then this, this is the rest of the adult nonfiction stacks. Back here. So the main, you know, Portion at the front here is all the same as previously. So we just want to make it clear. So from the end of the book stacks, could you, could you just show the touch on those? Josephine. From the end of the book stacks. To the right. To where the stair is. That'll be essentially the same, except for a course. There's no. Sawtooth. But, you know, it'll be the openness and the stair. And it'll be as light as we can make it with artificial light. But everything beyond the bookshelves back is that that's where the changes. Young adult. And then we have to get the bathrooms in somewhere. And that's why. Sharon, we rotated the bathrooms like that. So we would get more glass. Thank you, Josephine. If you can go. Thanks. We'll also say that in this view. I mean, it's a dramatic change. Question, but the other thing that's important. So the linear skylight that runs along the edge on top of the stairs. I think this is another important thing because. Now it isn't going to distinguish between the new and the existing, but that source of light above the main public stair is going to draw people up. So the more we bring light in at the edges like this. They help deal with. You know, some of the ability of bringing light in. I think the more we bring light in at the edges like this. They help deal with, you know, some of the ability of bringing light in. I think the more important it is. And I think this view kind of speaks for itself in that regard. Paul. I thought the MVLC didn't like skylights. They hate them. But this won't be a skylight. This will be more of a. We have Paul to be honest with working on that because they don't want just skylights and especially in Amherst because they said no skylight in 1990. And you guys put one in and at least. They, they tell us that all the time. So we're working on this. It's probably going to be more. It won't. Maybe more of a monitor than a, than a skylight. So we're still working that out. Paul, but that's a really good point. Could I ask you a question about the ceiling? So I'm a little. I'm trying to remember what we've decided about the ceilings. And at some meeting, there was a kind of sense that we would be seeing pipes or duck work or something like that is, is that not the case? So definitely still out there. Yes. CLT construction. What we're going to do in Craig's handy schedule that he went through at the beginning. One of the first things that we're going to be doing with the ce items is sustainability goals. Just making sure that we're still on track for everything that was decided on previously. And so this is really just, you know, us with the model that we had previously and just, you know, showing a new view that that ceiling is not necessarily going to remain exactly as you see it right now. Yeah, I just think that we want to keep in mind that the, this rendering, we might have a very different look. Yes. If that ceiling is open. As opposed to what it is you're showing now, which is this kind of wood thing that picks up the railing and it may have a very different feel to it. Once you open up that ceiling, Alex. Yeah, I apologize. I didn't know we were going to be looking at this stuff tonight. So I didn't, I don't have things fresh in my head. And I didn't look at them before. My recollection was that we had found some cost savings in. Now I can't remember what it was. We were looking at the price. Whatever it was, we found it was in the roof. Right. Yeah. Thank you. I can't remember the synthetic slate. I thought we had talked about because we had the cost savings in the slate, having a reduced number of saw tooth. We had a reduced number of saw tooth. Am I. Misremembering that or did that not happen? Cause I, that's. I thought that was still a possibility that we were looking at. This is on Craig. Sure. Yes. So Alex, you're remembering correctly. So we had the value engineering list. And that total. I can't remember what the amount was. Let's say. And then at the end, when, when that was determined that we could do a synthetic slate roof, there was like a quarter million dollars. Extra savings. And so then this group said, okay, well, we'll figure out where to apply that sort of in the next phase. And so yes, so that there could be that money, that low savings could be applied to a more involved, not the full saw tooth, but maybe a more involved. Lighting from above scheme or it could be put into. I can't remember what some of the other goals were, but yeah, so you do have some savings that you can now dip into, to make things a little bit nicer. So when, when is that conversation? When did, when do we need to make that decision? So that, so that will be, we'll start that discussion in January. Okay. Yeah. Not part of tonight because tonight's just schematic. You got it. You got it. And I think we have up to three meetings at which we could be discussing those topics. Yeah. Okay. Other, you're going to show us more renderings. That was it. Okay. So. Now, so you want to take down the screen share for a minute. So any questions anybody else has about anything that we've seen in these. Close to final schematics, Alex. Yeah, thanks. I think I heard this, but I just want to make sure with the library director that staff, staff have looked at you've looked at everybody. There's. You guys are happy. Staff are thrilled. Okay. Great. Okay. Although they like Austin miss the saute through. So. Okay. So unless there's an objection. Let's say you have our sign off on these schematics. Is that okay? Is everybody okay with that kind of unanimous consent? Great. And I just have to say how thrilling this is. And how grateful we are for the. Innovation, the creativity of making this. Very complicated library. I mean, in terms of. Library design, this is a particularly. Integre complicated and beautiful design that you've, that you've come up with. Paul. If this is an actual decision point, shouldn't there be a vote of the school building committee? Or is this just sort of like. We're not in our head to say, keep going. You're doing great. Well, I'm proposing that we do something which is frequently done in other bodies, which is. By unanimous consent, meaning. Everybody agrees to it. But would you like us to put our voices to that? Well, Well, there. You know, Consent is not an action of the committee. It's just sort of like. Nobody said anything. So I think a vote is more powerful. I don't know if we needed to vote or not. If we don't need to vote, no need to vote, but I'm just saying. It felt like somebody's earlier today was saying, this is a decision meeting. And if it's. The only way we act is through motions and act and votes. Okay. Well, again, that, that's fine. Let's just, let's just vote so everybody's happy. Okay. If someone would make a motion that we. Approve the. The schematic designs as a basis for moving forward. And then if it was seconded, then we can have, then we can have. We can have a vote. I would love to be the one that makes that motion. And Paul would like to be the one to second it. Yes. Okay. Thank you for that. Okay. So we're going to vote yes or no. Yes, you approve. No, you don't Sharon. Yes. Yes. Yes. Christine. Yes. Anika. Yes. Thank you. Alex. Yes. And Sean. Yes. Thank you. And Austin votes. Yes. Okay. That's fabulous. So anything else Craig. From. From you all. Nothing else. And again, the great gratitude to FAA. Just, just, just wonderful. Thank you. For everything. And thank you, you know, Sharon and your team for all the input. And we've thanked NBLC. So it's, it's, I, and it, you know what? Austin is a challenge on this building because of the existing building, the way it is, but we feel really great about where we are. Yeah. And every time we see. What it is that you've done. We appreciate all the more the. The excellence of FAA and dealing with these complicated. Buildings. I mean, that's part of why you were chosen. And so it's just, you know, we see it vindicated. Okay. So thank you for that. All right. With everybody's agreement, Sean, you want to. Give us a financial update. So I don't have much to add. I came from a finance committee meeting, so I don't have to add. We do have one invoice. Actually Craig, do we have a November invoice to approve? Quite possibly, but it also might have. Might not have made it through the system. I think I saw it. I don't have my file. So I think we'd wait till next week to our next meeting to approve the November invoice. So. Yeah. There's no other update. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Sean. Okay. Next, the design. Subcommittee. Nothing to report. Eager to go. We're eager to go. Great outreach, Alex. Just we'll obviously be having a meeting soon so that we can talk about the outreach around the bathrooms. And also I am going to. Attend our equity justice and inclusion. And then we'll have a committee meeting tomorrow to give them an update so we can use that group as well to help us reach out to the community and also participate as, as they. Want to in that conversation. Terrific. Thank you, Alex. Okay. I know of no correspondence. Nothing that I haven't anticipated 48 hours in advance. Next is an opportunity for public comment. We have five attendees who are grateful. To all for coming. If any member of the public wishes to speak at this time, if they would signify by raising their virtual hand. That would be great. I just was inviting public comment. Okay. With that. I'd like to invoke the Bachmann rule, which is unanimous consent for adjournment. Wait, don't do that yet. Okay. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that on Thursday, January 5th at 430 PM. Can we agree to that? Thursday, the fifth. You see that date again, Sharon. Thursday, the fifth. Up to January. That date was, was that date on Craig's schedule? No, that is not. So that would be prior to the, sorry, Sharon. That would be prior to the start of the design development series of meetings. What would the agenda be? Do you expect? I would say we don't have an agenda in mind at present, but perhaps we put that in the schedule and get closer to the date determine if there are things that need to be discussed, either to help find gold Alexander move on to the next phase or whatnot. And then we can cancel it, but you know, we will hold that January 19th meeting. And then my show might go ahead. Well, again, the dates are getting confused. So Sharon just proposed the fifth of January. At 430. Is that okay with everybody? Great. So then my next question is, would I be able to. Host all of these meetings that show up on Craig's milestone schedule. So it's in all of our calendars and these meetings are posted on the calendar. I think that's what we were assuming. Yeah. Great. Thanks. Okay. Anything else, Sharon? No.  Yes. Everybody likes that. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Thanks, everybody. And if we don't reconvene, we won't reconvene, but have good holidays and happiness. Happy new year. I think it is fair. Yeah. The town has done as a, as usual, a terrific job in assembling this building committee. And really grateful for the work that everybody's done and the work that we will do together. So good holidays and happy, happy new year. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Take care. Bye-bye.


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