FSC, Consigli Construction hold community meeting

By Amy Koski
News Editor

In a community meeting held Jan. 25, Consigli Con- struction Co., Inc. and college administrators updated the FSC community about plans for the new residence hall at the school.

Jeff Navin, the project executive, said the new resi- dence hall is expected to be a five to seven story building, complete with 410 student beds in suite-style rooms, a “Grab ’N Go” snack bar, geothermal walls and rain harvesting.

The anticipated schedule for the project is to start con- struction on Mar. 8, 2010, to complete foundations for the building by May 27, 2010, to complete the structure by Sept. 7, 2010, to complete construction by July, 1, 2011 and to have students occupy the building by Aug. 11, 2011.

John Oliver, project superintendent, said neighbors to the college can expect to see dump trucks, fences, excavators, cranes and workers in hard hats while construction is underway.

He said they can expect to hear drilling, beeping, en- gines, compressors, grinders, screw guns and small tools. Oliver shared some facets of the logistics plan, or “how we’re going to complete this project.”

He said the construction equipment will be confined to the working space, Adams Road will be the primary ac- cess point with State Street only utilized if absolutely nec- essary and there will be a walkway with blinking safety lights for student foot traffic. The company wants to move pedestrian traffic away from the construction site, he said.

Consigli even arranged a new bus stop for a young female resident of Adams Road so she doesn’t have to walk through the construction.

Matt Rymanowski, the project engineer, presented the site management plan.

Goals are to minimize community disturbance, analyze major activities, work from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., to mitigate dust and noise, to recycle materials and to maintain indoor air quality controls.

A neighbor concerned with the “workmen’s trucks” being parked without any controls as to location of the vehicles was assured that the workers will be parking in Maynard or the back of the Maple lot.

Among concerns expressed by community members about the construction were the fact that students park on Maynard and other streets that intersect the campus. Two neighbors said the Framingham Police Department and the FSCPD both avoid issuing parking tickets to violators.

One community member said, “I just want to make sure that you really keep that Maynard Parking lot so that they are not parking on all the streets - Maynard Road, Church, I mean, it would be a nice treat to make sure all the workers are down on Maynard Road. It would be ap- preciated.”

FSC President Timothy Flanagan said, “If you were to petition the town to put a ban on parking on Maynard and State streets, I’d be the first to sign it.”

A man who has lived in the neighborhood surrounding FSC for many years asked if Adams Road would be closed at all, and added, “You folks have done a wonder- ful job in your building [projects].”

Eric Thiboutot, the project manager, said Adams Road will be closed the second or third week of April, hopefully one half at a time, in order to lay electrical work.

After the meeting, Assistant to the President for Public and Governmental Relations Peter Chisholm said, “The new residence hall is being built at an interest rate that is the lowest interest rate they’ve [Mass. State College Building Authority] ever built a dorm for. ... It’s three and a quarter percent and because of legislation that was sup- ported by Speaker Deleo and the House of Representatives - we had a meeting with him, and he agreed to back us with it, and then the Senate approved it as well.

“Because of this particular piece of legislation pass- ing, the room fees in here for the new dorm are going to be somewhere around $150 cheaper per year per student than they otherwise might have been, which is, of course, going to result in the savings of students over the life of the bonds, of millions of dollars.”