Climate Smart Kingston reported that the city has hired Fulcrum to design building decarbonization work for two municipal facilities and to produce a 30% design package by November 2025.

The commission said Fulcrum’s work will focus on the Steve Hall and Andy Marcus Center buildings and will include data collection, design development and test boreholes to evaluate geothermal potential at both sites. The project replaces an earlier audit contractor (Naresco) and moves the program into design and delivery phases; staff expect this to be a multi-year effort with 30% design completed this year, additional design phases next year and construction in a following year, pending funding and approvals.

Commission members also described a recent technical meeting on thermal energy networks involving the Department of Energy technical assistance team and an industry presenter identified as Yannis Tony, president of Geo. Staff said the meeting covered high-level merits of a distributed thermal network versus building‑level geothermal systems and that further scoping conversations were scheduled.

The chair said the municipal design contract scope cannot be changed without a formal contract revision, but if information from other municipal projects (for example, drilling for the new fire station) would be useful, the city could explore a change order or other inter-project coordination.

Status and next steps: Fulcrum will pursue 30% design deliverables by November 2025, staff will gather additional site data and coordinate any required test borings, and further meetings on the thermal network will continue as the technical scope is refined.