Bristol Warren committee updates school building project; recommends municipal water for fields after well tests

Bristol Warren Regional School Committee members heard a detailed update on the district's multi-school building project on Monday, Jan. 27, including a recommendation to use municipal water for athletic fields after on-site well tests produced insufficient yields and a budget reconciliation that keeps the project within the district's taxpayer-impact target.

Project managers from PMA and designers from Perkins Eastman told the committee that the design work for the 60% construction documents is largely complete and that a RIDE submission is expected in the week following the meeting. The project team reported it had reconciled cost estimates with estimators and engineers and that construction costs are "at or below our number based on the estimate reconciliation," according to a PMA representative.

Why it matters: The district has set a taxpayer-impact cap for the project (discussed in the meeting as roughly $148,000,000) and needs to remain below a $150 million threshold to meet the previously described impact goal. Decisions about site utilities, alternates carried to bid, and scope changes could affect what is included in the base bid and what becomes a sequential bid alternate.

Design, code and historic-review updates

Perkins Eastman said it is finalizing the historic-resources report with HPHC after an on-site review at the high school and expects to re-submit the final report. The team also said Rhode Island's adoption of the IECC 2024 energy code required changes to mechanical scope and the addition of submetering. Those changes increased the project's CHIP scorecard total to about 175 points; the submetering addition alone picked up two CHIP points, the team said.

The design update also covered site and building details: an inaccessible play structure was added to the Hugh Cole scope at the architects' suggestion; ceiling and glazing adjustments were used to reduce cost while meeting daylighting and acoustical targets; brick corbeling was redesigned for articulation without adding scope; a new dry-pipe sprinkler system will be installed in the Hugh Cole attic where the existing unit has failed; and additional exterior lighting was added between the new district office and parking to improve pedestrian safety.

Facilities items and code-driven fixes

At Kikomuit Middle School (KMS), the team reported hydrant-flow testing that identified a need for a fire hydrant on the east side of the school to meet NFPA spacing: the hydrant must be within 400 feet of the front door. The project team said stormwater controls and a rooftop unit were added at KMS to address site requirements.

Irrigation well testing and recommendation

The team presented results from drilling for an irrigation well at the lacrosse field (the higher field area). The developed well at about 600 feet yielded roughly 3 gallons per minute, the presenters said. The team noted that to irrigate the athletic fields without on-site storage tanks would require an irrigation well producing roughly 80—285 gallons per minute (the presenters used both figures when describing target yields), a level not achieved on site.

PMA and Perkins Eastman said they ran a life-cycle cost analysis comparing municipal water for irrigation against several well scenarios (including multiple smaller-yield wells). The analysis incorporated typical municipal water-rate escalations and the likely additional capital and treatment costs for silty groundwater. The project team concluded that, given the site's clay layer that holds near-surface water and the low yields observed, municipal water is the most cost-efficient and least-risk option over the life of the bond. The presenters also said a best-case, high-yield well is speculative until drilled and that realistic scenarios could require multiple wells (the team discussed scenarios with several wells producing 15 gpm each), filters, or substantial storage and treatment infrastructure.

Budget reconciliation, alternates and bid strategy

The team said a full estimate reconciliation (a 10-hour session with estimators, Perkins Eastman, engineers and the OPM) produced an overall construction cost at or below the district's committed number (presented in the meeting as about $148,000,000). To manage risk and give the district options at bid time, the building committee compiled a sequential list of bid alternates. The presenters explained alternates are numbered and must be accepted in sequence if the committee chooses to add them to the base scope after bids are received; the bottom-line recommendation included one alternate that the building committee suggested be procured outside the general contractor's bid (for example as a separate vendor scope) to avoid general-contractor markups.

One example cited was an audio/intercom upgrade across existing schools (Kikomuit, Hugh Cole, Rockwell and others) designed to match the new high-school system; the building committee recommended carrying that as a numbered alternate for the school committee to consider.

Accessibility and fixtures

On specific user requests, the presenters said the inaccessible play structure was added to the Hugh Cole drawings. A Perkins Eastman representative said the shown play structure panel contained four features claimed to meet accessibility requirements; the committee asked staff to verify with Hugh Cole teachers that the selected equipment meets the program needs before the district spends money on equipment that may not meet users' expectations.

Committee member Miss Richards asked about the district's gender-neutral toilet planning. A Perkins Eastman representative said single-occupancy toilet rooms are being treated as gender neutral and that the design includes student-accessible gender-neutral fixtures spread throughout the school as well as dedicated single-occupancy staff toilet rooms. Richards asked that staff confirm whether students who use gender-neutral toilets have comparable access to classroom areas; the design team said they would follow up.

Meeting procedure and next steps

The committee approved the consent agenda by motion and second early in the meeting; the transcript records a motion to approve, a second and the committee voice vote of "Aye," with no public comment taken that night. The project team said they expect to submit the RIDE package in the week after the meeting and planned presentations to the Bristol planning board on Feb. 13 and the Warren planning board on Feb. 24.

Actions recorded in the meeting were procedural (consent-agenda approval) and project-directional (the project team's recommendation to proceed with design using municipal water for irrigation and to carry a specific list of alternates into the bid package). The committee did not vote that night to accept alternates into the base scope; alternates were shown for future consideration at bid time.