Architect Bob Bell of Design Partnership of Cambridge, left, points out a feature of one of his firm's designs. The school district will recommend a preferred design by the end of the month.

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — And then there were three.

 

On Thursday evening, the Mount Greylock Regional School Building Committee decided to take one of the addition/renovation options on its designer's list out of the running for a potential building project.

 

And with just three weeks left to decide whether it will forward an add/reno or new build to the Massachusetts School Building Authority, the committee likely will benefit from the narrower field.

 

"We would highly advocate to reduce the number of options," Lee Dore of Dore & Whittier told the committee.

 

Dore & Whittier is the school district's owner's project manager.

 

Dore was on hand to advise the committee as it reviewed more detailed drawings of four projects proposed by Design Partnership of Cambridge, the district's architect.

 

At its last meeting, the School Building Committee had decided to broaden the number of options from the three (two renovations and one new build) it picked back on June 4.

 

On Thursday night, it kept in the running the plan it added on June 25 but threw out one of the original contenders from the June 4 meeting — a plan called R7 that involved demolishing everything but the current gymnasium and building all new classrooms, cafeteria, auditorium and support space.

 

Robert Bell of Design Partnership told the committee that the architects were finding R7 more problematic the more they looked at the design plan.

 

"In the end, [R7] will be very close to the cost of new construction," Bell said. "That raises the question why not build new?"

 

Bell said that in order to fit all the elements Mount Greylock needs in its education plan, the R7 configuration also was going to require more space — about 3,000 square feet more — than the other three proposals the architects are developing.

 

The committee voted unanimously to drop R7, allowing Design Partnership to spend more time on the other three designs in the critical weeks leading up to a planned July 30 vote on which proposal to send as the district's preferred design to the MSBA.

 

Bell was much more optimistic about the other two add/renos as well as the new construction proposal. Each of those three were presented in greater detail on Thursday night at a joint meeting of the building committee and Mount Greylock School Committee attended by about a half-dozen Lanesborough residents, including several town officials.

 

The committee spent the least time assessing the new construction option, which is, from a design standpoint, the most straightforward of the three.

 

"Everything is where it needs to be," Bell said.

 

The design designated R1c.1 makes the most use of the current building, keeping the current "doughnut" shaped academic wing, the auditorium, the gymnasium and the mechanicals and rebuilding the section of the building that joins the gym with the rest of the school. R1c.1 also moves the cafeteria front and center, aiming to create usable public space that is close to the auditorium and gym.

 

The other add/reno still in the running, dubbed R1c.3, builds a new academic wing off the front of the existing school, tears down all of the current classroom space, keeps the gym and the auditorium and builds a new cafeteria closer to the auditorium.

 

R1c.3 likely would be easier to phase with far less disruption to the school during construction than R1c.1 — a point that resonated strongly with several members of the School Building Committee and School Committee member Chris Dodig.

 

R1c.1 has the advantage of reusing more of the existing building, and maximizing reuse is supported by the MSBA, which offers a financial incentive to do so in terms of its reimbursement.

 

Ultimately, it will be the School Committee that will have the final say on July 30 about the preferred option that goes to the MSBA.

 

Assuming the MSBA approves of that option, the project then goes into the schematic design phase. A final blessing from MSBA in January 2016 would set the stage for a spring 2016 vote in each of Mount Greylock's two member towns, Williamstown and Lanesborough, on whether to bond for the building project.

 

There is a lot of work that needs to be done between now and then — and even between now and the July 30 vote.

 

The building committee's financial working group is currently studying what bonding options might be available if the two towns decide to go forward with the project.

 

"The bond agent we're working with is the bond agent for both Lanesborough and Williamstown," Daley said. "He knows the debt for both towns.

 

"There will probably be four or five ways to [finance the debt]. ... One minimizing cash needs up front, one minimizing overall interest paid, etc."

 

Daley said the working group hoped to have data to present to the full committee at its July 23 meeting.

 

Also at the July 23 meeting the SBC will hear the fruits of two days of intensive conversations about sustainable building elements that might be included in any building project.

 

Wendy Penner, a member of the Mount Greylock School Committee, is heading up the building project's sustainable building working group, and she told the committee on Thursday that her group plans a "green charette," tentatively scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, July 22 and 23, at Mount Greylock.

 

The July 22 session will run from 3:30 to 8 p.m. and will a "visioning exercise," Penner said. The next day from 1 to 5:30, the working group and its sustainability consultant hope to narrow down the key elements that could be included in the project and make a presentation to the building committee's 5:30 meeting.

 

"What we're really talking about is building a great building that people can thrive in," Penner said. "It's not so much about what the learning spaces are like. It's the other aspects of quality of life in the building."

 

All members of the public are invited to the charette, Penner said. A light meal will be served at the session on July 22. Any community members unable to attend are encouraged to submit their thoughts in writing, either in one of the suggestion boxes at Lanesborough's and Williamstown's town halls or online. The email addresses of the School Building Committee's leadership are available at www.wlschools.org.