As the Municipal Building Committee prepared to recommend final designs for the renovation of Town Hall and Hildreth House to Harvard residents in a public forum this week, the committee was confronted by a flurry of new objections to its plan to preserve the second floor of the 1872 building for larger civic gatherings.
The forum was scheduled to convene Thursday evening at 7 p.m. in Volunteers Hall at the town library and was billed as the last opportunity for residents to publicly critique the work of the committee. At the forum, the town's design firm, LLB Architects of Rhode Island, was to present fresh sketches of the designs recommended by a majority of the committee.
In addition, members of the committee were expected to review the history of the project and outline the pros and cons of two approaches that have been proposed for the second floor of Town Hall. One proposal would permanently divide that space into offices, meeting rooms, and storage closets using fixed walls and ceilings; the other—approved by a majority of the committee—would add some permanent rooms, but guarantee that a large civic space would always be available by using moveable, acoustic dividers to create the smaller meetings spaces that volunteer boards and committees need to conduct their town business.
But a sudden outbreak of objections from opponents and skeptics of the open plan threatened last week to once again delay the committee's work and upset a tight schedule devised by project manager John Sayre-Scibona of DTI to deliver a set of schematic designs—endorsed by the Selectmen and other key town committees—in time for Town Meeting.
First, the committee was warned by the town's new Sewer Commission that any "non-municipal" use of upper Town Hall required commission approval. In a Jan. 18 letter to the committee signed by Sewer Commission Chair Cindy Russo, who is also a member of the Capital Planning and Investment Committee, stated that "changes in use" for Town Hall could not be approved until the new system is fully operational and "it is determined that the system has sufficient capacity to serve existing residents and uses in the district."
Whether sewer capacity is an issue for Town Hall will need to be resolved by town counsel, Selectman and former sewer action group liaison Tim Clark told the Press. But, he said, he believed the concern was "without merit."
Next, the Capital Planning and Investment Committee delivered a "formal request" to the committee, also dated Jan. 18, requesting that it pay LLB to prepare "quantitative cost data" for "renovating the second floor of Town Hall as office/meeting space versus converting to performance /cultural space." (See related story in "From the Boards.") The letter was signed by all five capital committee members and delivered personally by committee chair George McKenna.
This analysis, the letter continued, would be critical to the committee in deciding "which scheme is the best fit and investment value for this building." Since the capital committee does not have jurisdiction over the work of the building committee, McKenna later forwarded the letter to the Board of Selectmen, which does. As of Wednesday, the committee had not responded directly to the capital committee request.
Adding to the scrum was an observation by building committee co-chair Wade Holtzman that the group had overlooked a request by the cable committee for as much as 700 square feet for its studios and equipment. Co-chair Peter Jackson acknowledged the omission but said the request was not on the list of Town Hall programs compiled by LLB because it had not been received until mid-December.
"Maybe we'll have to look at that," said Jackson.
Last week's pre-forum planning meeting was held in the wood-paneled Hildreth House parlor, but as it concluded, the divisions that remained among committee members were once again visible.
As energy-saving lights flickered on and off and laughter from an upstairs card game filtered into the room, the committee listened first to a presentation by LLB lead architect Drayton Fair of the "preferred designs" chosen by the committee for Town Hall and Hildreth House, and then debated how to present its recommendations to the town.
Though no vote was taken, there was agreement that the "footprints" developed by LLB for both buildings were now ready for prime time, both in design and size. The total size of Town Hall now approaches that of the former Scheme 1, with its small addition, as demanded by a majority of the Selectmen two weeks ago. All town government functions fit on the first floor, Town Administrator Tim Bragan told the Press this week, though the cable request would put new pressure on the plan if space for that group cannot be found elsewhere.
"You have done a good job of doing what we asked," Holtzman told Drayton.
What continues to divide the committee, however, is how much additional analysis should be done to compare schemes for fitting out the 2,000 square feet of floor space on the second floor of Town Hall, with its classic stage and proscenium, its mezzanine, and its 17-foot ceilings and soaring windows.
Everyone on the committee agrees that the town needs more meeting and storage space for volunteer boards and committees. The choice is between closed meeting rooms and offices, open space divided by partitions, or some compromise between the two is best. While Holtzman and Russo say their minds are not made up, both have argued that the committee owes it to the town to create a formal plan for each fit-out and determinethe relative cost of each approach.
"I just don't think the discussion should end," said Russo, who pressed his colleagues for at least an informal analysis of the "build-out" option that would fulfill the request of the capital committee and help residents understand the issues.
"I would like to see this building get restored and renovated for another 50 years," he added. "I think we're kidding ourselves that we're going to get consensus by not discussing [the alternative]."
He said he had not made up his mind.
So why hasn't the committee worked up such a comparison? The answer: two weeks ago, the Board of Selectmen told the group to return in February with a smaller version of the design known as Scheme 2, which featured a new addition to Town Hall and a second floor divided into meetings spaces with moveable partitions. Subsequently, Selectmen Chair Marie Sobalvarro told the committee that it could not spend town money on designs that "preclude" use of the upper Town Hall space for larger events, as permanent rooms would do.
And there the matter has rested. But Thursday evening a compromise appeared to have been reached, in which Russo and committee member and architect Doug Coots agreed to prepare rough sketches and cost estimates for a closed and open fit-out of upper Town Hall. The plan was for those findings to to be presented to forum attendees so they could understand pros and cons of each approach and make up their own minds. As of Wednesday, however, the Press could not confirm this information would be presented.
The goal of the committee, and the Selectmen who chartered it, is to deliver a set of schematic designs to Town Meeting voters in April that they will agree to fund.
"Right now," building committee co-chair Holtzman told the Press in a phone interview last week, "I don't think [the plan] would pass."
He said he had heard from many residents who were unhappy with the work of the committee.
"They're not the people who go to the charrettes and they're not the people who weigh in [on issues]. But they're the silent majority, the people that show up at the ballot and vote," Holtzman said. "And they're not the 275 people who come to Town Meeting.
"If you want to get those people to get on board with this and say, 'Yes, we should spend close to $4 million to do this project, then you need to be more open,'" said Holtzman. "The committee needs to be able to say, 'We did look at keeping this as a completely open performance space and we found that we didn't have enough room,' or 'We did have enough room for the offices, and we found that it was much more expensive to do that or it wasn't that much more expensive.' All those things, rather than steering the conversation," Holtzman said.
"Then," Holtzman concluded, "you might get some traction."
Meanwhile, as of Wednesday morning, more than 240 individuals had signed an online petition posted by Stu Sklar of Scott Road. The petition asserts that the authorizing article passed by Town Meeting last year requires the Selectmen and its committee to come up with designs that "meet not only the needs of town governance but also to provide for public assembly space including meeting, civic and community space."