Published in the June 11, 2021 edition.

By MARK SARDELLA

The designers of the soon-to-be expanded and renovated Public Safety Building recently went through the building one more time with members of the Police and Fire Departments to look at every single space and fine tune the project plans.

Janet Slemenda of HKT Architects reported on that exercise at last night’s Permanent Building Committee meeting.

She displayed the existing plans for each area of the public Safety Building, described the recent walk through with public safety officials and highlighted areas of the plans that could be tweaked as well as those that police officials were happy with.

She began with the evidence storage space, the evidence processing areas and the women’s locker room.

Continuing with the first floor plan, she reviewed the entry sequence, the lobby, dispatch, records room and firearms licensing area.

Moving to the second floor, she discussed the evidence lab, the detectives’ area and the family services suite before moving on to the third floor administrative and executive offices.

Police Chief Steven Skory was present at last night meeting and confirmed that he and his staff went through the plans with Slemenda in great detail and are satisfied with the resulting design. Deputy Police Chief Craig Calabrese and Fire Chief Michael Sullivan concurred.

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Moving on to the Wakefield Memorial High School Project, Chairman Joseph Bertrand reminded the committee that a Request for Design Services (RFS) has been sent out. Proposals are due by July 7. The Permanent Building Committee will meet on June 23 with the Wakefield Memorial High School Building Committee to discuss the process for reviewing the proposals and selecting a designer.

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The Permanent Building Committee approved a number of invoices last night, including a $10,000 payment to LeftField for Owner’s Project Manager (OPM) services related to the high school project.

Also approved were invoices for the Public Safety Building project, including $46,725.93 to HKT for architectural services for the month of May. Another $4,480 was paid to HKT to supplemental services related to value engineering and a building envelope report.

The committee also agreed to pay a $10,000 invoice from LeftField for OPM services related to the Public Safety Building in May.

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The Permanent Building Committee also re-organized last night, although not much has changed. Longtime PBC chairman Bertrand was tapped to continue in that role and Chip Tarbell was elected to continue as board secretary.