On the agenda: Capeelizabethme Ad Hoc 1934 Building Committee — data center (Aug 17)

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UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTS: Ad Hoc 1934 Building Committee 8-17-26

Welcome everybody to the August 17th meeting of the 1934 building
committee. Uh we do have a quorum we're missing Penny Jordan and
Cam Brown but everybody else is here. Um before we start why don't we
go around say our names so that AI can pick it up.
Jim Rowe, Andy Patten, Amit Oza, Brian Harris, Laura Briggs, Kevin
Guimond, Pat Fox, Susana Measelle Hubbs, Jonathan Sahrbeck. Great. All
right. Um, so the rst uh item on the agenda is to take public comment. Do
we have anybody on Zoom or No, nobody in the uh meeting room. So
there's no public comment.
Yeah, Monday. Um, and then just a uh quick update um before we get to
the minutes. Uh wanted to let everybody know and I apologize. This was
an oversight on my part. I was going to send you all the draft of the um the
report that I presented to the town council the other night.
It went very well. Um I talked too fast, but that was because it was getting
later in the night. Just trying to get through it. But we had no questions
from the council. So, they seemed all okay with it. And um and then I did
get a call from a reporter from the Press Herald who had some questions
about a followup and I thought there was a nice article press today about
our work we've been doing.
You did a nice job. I read it. Oh, I had lots of o the record comments. I'm
just getting um Yeah, but I I think um yeah, I think we're I really do think
we're all doing great work quite frankly. maybe in June, but I think we're
kind of ahead of schedule where we thought we would be.

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So, I think that's a credit to everybody really kind of putting in the work on
the comments here. Um, so, um, next thing we have is, uh, minutes.

Anybody have changes to the minutes you'd like to see? I have just a
couple comments. Sure. Um, Suzan, I don't know how far it would be to
do.
It's easy. I think under all the sessions where it has arguments, it would be
a lot easier if they were bulleted. I don't know if we can tell AI to list those
in bullets as opposed to just single sentences in paragraph form, but it just
I think it's easier on the readers to share. Do you want me to do that for
these or going forward?
I didn't know if it was a command that you could easily just I sometimes
when I'm working with AI stu will say put it in for me. If it's that easy, then
I will just do that. Okay. If it means you have to go in by hand and do it all, I
think so to that.
And then the only other comment I had under arguments against selling,
one of the bullets says models or long-term governance and wasn't really
clear to me and I was at the meeting. So I I was just wondering if there
was a di erent way to phrase that. I believe Pat might have been the
person who talked about long-term governance.
I couldn't remember. But no, I think that was um Ken we talked about sort
of it's shortsighted to remove a building that that would not be good
governance that I I think if it was around and tied into the sentence before
breaks up a continuous municipal school campus and looking longterm,
why would we ever give up a piece of land attached to our schools?
Kind of see that makes sense to me. It's just the models sent at poor level.
I know I didn't say it at the last meeting, but another example would be
Jerry Mary's property across the street. If it ever comes for sale, absuts
the town property, the schools, why wouldn't we consider if you council
just consider acquiring it.

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You know what I mean? It makes good governance or right? So could we
just change the wording slightly so that you are um so under arguments
against selling. Um it says selling results in permanent loss of control over
how the signs develop. Great. It breaks up contiguous municipal and
school campus.

Yes. And then it says models support long-term governance. I just
personally didn't think that was clear and um was wondering if it could
better capture what Ken said. Maybe you want to say that again. Boy, well
it's kind of term to use. It's kind of a continuous municipal campus and I
kind of say I can't remember how I exactly said it but I just don't think that
long term.
Yeah. I mean just put an hand in there between the previous cont school
campus and demonstrate for long-term governance. Yeah. To tie those
together a little bit. Yeah. I just as a teacher I often would say to my
students, "What do you mean by that?" They're like,
"I don't know. It just sounded good." And so I guess I'm my antennas up
for what does that mean? I I don't know what that really means. That's
that's where I um you you said more speci cally, you know, in the short
term. Yeah. You know, it breaks up the continuous municipal school
canvas model.
And I guess from the long-term perspective, if you're running a
government or a business and the business goes up for sale next to you,
don't you always look at it? Don't you always consider it? It's poor
business practice. Shortsighted if you don't consider acquiring the
property next to you that's attached to you.
I guess it's kind of Yeah. So maybe that's it's it's shortterm. It's
shortsighted to um dispose of a property that shortsighted to dispose of a
property that is part of the larger contiguous pro parcel. Maybe that's more
speci c. I think one of your examples was if this project if we weren't
doing all this analysis, would you ever just say, "Hey, do you want to carve
a hole in the middle of our campus and sell it?" But I think that's more

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speci c than just modest poor long-term governance. I don't think sitting
in this meeting would know what that I think that's an I wouldn't say oh it's
totally it's totally it's totally I think there were two points it was the
continuous parcel card out but it was also the the concept that I think and
you made this point that it the the need may not be right in front of us, but
we don't want to uh lose the opportunity when uh if the need is I would
argue that another good example of how purchasing the property from

which is outrest when we did that no one envisioned it would be public
works no one envisioned the elds no one envisioned but you knew it was
the right thing to do next to the transfer site to buy that that's an example
so maybe we rework it to include the word shortsighted which really gets
at both of those both the things that you and Brian lang I think it capture
bit of what we were trying to say in our discussion all right thank you
um anybody else have anything all right do we have a motion to adopt the
minutes as amended move jam anybody second second any discussion all
in favor All right, thank you. All right. Um, next thing we're going to do is
um kind of talk about the pros and cons of the uses that we discussed last
week or excuse me, last meeting.
um that really kind of talked about um sort of exploring what those uses
were with kind of the caveat that this is with the idea that um if we ever
went or this would kind of have to be a municipal use like it was kept by
the city or kept by the town and then we explored the pros and cons of
di erent uses and we have uh one, two, three, four, ve, six, seven, eight
uh to go through and it people on it.
I know you weren't here last week, so if you have any others um and but
people thought of others as well get into it. But if it's okay with you guys,
I'm going to kind of um just do pros and cons like we did last time. I mean,
we have eight, so hopefully there won't be too much prolonged discussion
on each one just so we can get through them.
Um, and also we we don't have to be set with this, but part of the agenda
that we're going to talk about tonight is sort of how to develop the viability
ratings for these. So my hope is that when people are thinking about these
um or talking about these, we're kind of thinking about the is it the four or
the ve things that we talked about last week was basically um current
uses of the cost of the town uh the market

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viability for uh that type of use. Um whether or not there'd be community
sport um the feasibility of it actually happening. Uh and that's sort of goes
to the municipal use versus a third party partner and then the value added
to the town. along those lines. How would we capture the the kind of
component of, you know, is this a business that the town wants to be in
from the value of visibility?

You know, for instance, you could you can come up with a lot of ideas of
things that may be great. Oh, a co ee shop or a or a movie theater. I think
that be the value. Does the town want to be in that business? Yeah, I think
that would be part of the discussion about like value added to the
community.
So, if somebody wanted to open um or a vape shop or something like that
versus a uh community bookstore. So, that but that's third party. I guess
I'm trying to understand, you know, we're talking about I think we're
talking about municipal use of the building and then an ancillary uses of
surplus space that may exist.
I wonder if it's maybe municipal feasibility. I mean the question of does the
town be in that business? Is it normal municipal feasibility? Is that related
more municipal feasibility instead of talking about this in the back? Why
don't we get into the examples and then but it's a good point.
So um that de nitely should be so and just the order that we brought it last
week was a performing arts kind of a music arts dance center. Anybody
want to start us o ? So, we going to have like a pros and cons. Yeah, I
think pros and cons. I know just I mean this is very on a very personal level
but there is a complete lack of of visual art o erings in this community.
So it lls a need of a lack of Yeah. There's lots of o erings through
community service. There's no private o erings in the town and
community service needs are are mostly just they're fairly limited. I'm glad
you used the word need. um problem having with this we have the the
main need I think is moving town hall over there right um these other
things are all speculatory we don't know if there's a market or how big the
market is so we're just guessing we're throwing out ideas which
is what we need to do but as far as selling it to the public selling it to the
town council I think we're better o um using need- driven examples like
you just mentioned the arts. There there is a need for that. There's a
de nite need to move the town o ers I think. Yeah.

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And I I think that the challenge that we will all be sur ng back to is you can
s you can show me say a daycare and I can give a great example here
Boy. If it costs $1,000 a square foot to build out a daycare and there's
private providers that are o ering it, there's other ways to do it.

Yeah, maybe that's maybe this isn't the place to be doing it. Jim, just I'm
sorry about jumping the gun on that. Are you saying that we we're not sure
if there would be a need for Well, I think we have to be careful of all we
could probably give preference to things that are needed and things that
are just being suggested.
That might be a good idea, you know. Right. One of the challenges
between needs and wants is that some people in the community would
argue something as a need while others may say it's just a want. That's
where it to the county council and to the general public comes in the
matrix comes in viability a airs.
Yeah. And I think to your point, I think of along those lines, you know, there
might be people who say a more signi cant tness space for the
community would be great, but there's a lot of people in the town saying,
why? I already g I don't need that. So there so there's that balance of of
do we need to provide that service or is it already is the need already the
market.
I think one pro for something like this is that it would kind of um merge well
into the surrounding community or the school campus. Um I mean I think
something along the lines of music, performing arts, dance would be
something that students would probably use or be brought to and see
things. So I I just think that there would be some type of um I'm trying to
think of a good term to use.
It's not modeling. I know AI will probably say that synergy. Synergy. Yeah.
No, and I think that's an important point that o erings that would be
accommodated in this building because they'll be on the same campus as
the school. It makes for a very safe and easy transfer of children from the
school to the after school program or whatever.

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And we're going to have a lot of these that will probably be that same type
of thing like if we're looking at turning into a di erent type of school,
program school, something a music school, but probably the same. I'm
going to go back to what Jim said a little bit and I kind of look at it from
the foundation up.

Spread out like there's no tomorrow. They have two libraries. Is there
opportunity to provide under one roof on that campus what we need more
e cient than this building. I the other day I put ladder 65 out. I'm going to
re call and I see people walking through. They're obviously coming from
the school walking through the re station.
Will be more e cient for them to walk to that building and cross Route 77.
I agree. I don't we don't need to hire a designer at this point, but I think to
rough out what's going to go where and then see how much room we got
left for both of you. I was thinking of that.
Sorry. I was just going to say I'm wondering as we do this exercise though
our purpose here is not to compare this to the municipal option but to look
at each of these options and it strengths and weaknesses. Is that right?
That's I mean that's what this was kind of the request of the group last
time to really kind of look at these uses and right kind of look at the pros
and cons.
Once we start to see pros and cons, then I think we can start to compare it
to other funds. And like some of these might have more pros and cons.
Some of them might have more cons and pros. And then we just kind of if I
could just throw one thing out for looking through years ago changing from
private sector to public sector.
It took me a long time to be able to switch to this lens to look through. But
in a municipal decision-making process, you're sometimes lling the void
that doesn't make the nancial sense. And that's why you're lling the
void. Like I saw a trail built that I never thought pencled out and made
sense.

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It's now one of the, you know, shining assets of the community used by
everyone or a train station that never really made sense to build but led to
other economic development things. So in some of these like a performing

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I look at that building as an opportunity for the town to improve how we
deliver the municipal services, the superintendents in this building. And
there may be other opportunities, the square footage is such that it will
provide opportunities for additional potentials. But I look at other
communities that have everything spread out. South Portland move code
enforcement to the old school down there at Sawyer Street School.

So just a somewhat the reverse of the way we want to look at things from
a scal responsibility standpoint but just in a making our community whole
to serve these purposes. It's a di erent you have to almost switch switch
your brain from how you pencil out a commercial project. So I think what I
hear Pat saying is is that it it potentially lls a gap not provided by the
private sector and that is unlikely to yeah like it is this a community if
there's a screaming need for community arts and I think maybe that rst
ash will tell you some of that too is you know
do people really want art space. Is that ever ever going to happen unless
you explore something like this? probably not. Along those lines, you
know, if town hall moved to the 1934 building, there would need to be a
chamber space built. Maybe that's an opportunity for that space to be
more than that.
It's slightly bigger or it's adaptable. So, it can serve as chamber, but it
could be served for small performance space. um or ASB. be divided and
used for two di erent small you know that I don't know let's just try
exibility of performance well I'm just thinking you know if if you're thinking
just in terms of town hall you just talk you build a chamber done it looks
like a
chamber it works like a chamber if you're thinking broader of community
need the space is something that can be more adaptable you could very
roughly assume that there's 5,000 square ft of space for the things you're
talking about. I mean, if you o the top of your head over there, when you
look at the the space di erence and you look at that whole middle bottom
oor is about uh 5,400 square feet or something like that.

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So, you could probably sort of somewhat picture the hybrid uses of 5,000
square feet roughly without going through the exercise of the potential for
adaptable performance spaces. Yeah, I just I'm just trying to see if we can
try to focus on what we could do with the 1934 building but and not say
okay once that domino falls then where could we go somewhere else?

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arts center if there's never going to be a private market here to actually let
it happen in the private sector then maybe at rates higher than things that
can just hopefully someday pencil out.

have good view sheds like actually you have to you have to build okay so
that's important from an architect that we need to hear right so you have
like you have a clear response Having gotten work colleagues and nished
a project that we've got in a space to create a reforming art center that just
nished last year to get seating that actually people would go to you got to
have tiered seating.
So like it may not be to that level but it cost a lot to just soundproof these
things all those it's it's technically challenging to kind of retro t buildings
do music and dance arts the whole much easier because it's studio space
and I'm putting depending on the arts I'm creating this one to you just so
when we look back at it we square foot it can be very expensive take it a
step further the square footage to build that type of structure or what
you're going to for re protection for means of egress
parking is a whole di erent level probably art studio space would actually
be a more studio studio space realistic I I guess I wasn't think I wasn't
thinking performance oor aisles I'm thinking fourth grade band but I think
it's important has half a dozen students and they're going to perform and
they need a little bit of space you know or or arts you know a separate
space from like a council, but a place where an outside party or is running
programming. Maybe it's clay, maybe it's painting, maybe it's whatever,
but it's it's just a room education. It makes sense. There are challenges
with having certain types of music and dance on top of or next to other
parts that are going on. You can it makes sense, right? Because you're
making a lot of noise.

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I think back we had a middle school teacher in town. Tony Bob several
years ago was very popular and did a great job. He opened his own music
school in Westboro and it was in the house basically in the he had
rehearsal rooms which would be more more of what I see is more of an
educational space not performing.

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So if we we end up moving the town halls in the town the building but we
still want to do this performing arts center where can we do a performing
arts? Oh we can do it in the town hall. So I'm just trying to see if we can
kind of keep focused on pros you have the space cons is like is having
worked on these type of projects it's extremely expensive and any real
performance if you don't have the type of building you want for it to

So I think what I'm hearing you say is potential on the pros side, potential
for small performing arts spaces, classes, classroom spaces, studio
spaces, but on the con side, larger venues, it's just not an appropriate
venue for so I think we just want to get that on paper so we kind of have a
sense of well for some things but not for others.
And that's a very important caveat because I think when you do start
talking about performing art space the and I think we saw a little bit school
there's expectations of what you need to do it right and we're not trying to
do it at that level. It's so turn that second oor into a giant auditorium type
thing.
It would cost a lot of money both from space and yeah I mean it's like it's
gonna cost a lot of money and if you don't do something to the oor it's
not work so why do those fair points um to Jim's point earlier though I
guess I'm a little confused in this process because looking at where this
the use of let's say town hall would go and where that 5,000 would be
could be very di erent in terms of what could go in there.
If town hall goes into the basement and the rst oor, that opens up a a
third oor that have a high ceiling. If town hall goes into the third, second,
and third oor, you're talking about a lower oor basement space that has
demising walls that has limited opportunity for retail frontage, let's say, or,
you know, or or certain uses.
So, so at some point I think Jim's point is very very valid that we do need
to understand where is that surplus and how is it going to come in and to
also if it if the surplus was on the third oor you need to circulate through
the building that may or may not need to be locked if town has closed for
the day and things like that.
I I think a lot of these and I'm I'm happy that we're kind of like going into
the broader sort of conversation about these because I think a lot of these
are going to probably have the same type of like me versus one and uh
yeah. All right. Anybody have anything more on performing arts?

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I think you could argue pro that performing arts are a they're a community
building function. I think it falls a little bit in what Pat was saying about
they are a public use in the sense that they bring community together.

They serve as a gathering check gathering place and that's part of building
communities provide opportunities for gathering and it also cuts across
many di erent age groups and interests.
The town I lived in in Vermont, the top oor of the town hall was a at an
old gym at oor, a little stage and it was a community ser community
theater space and there's another town I think it's fellows Vermont air town
hall has actually an old movie theater in it and it's still open and is part of
the community and it's kind of funky space.
I was just up in Stonington on vacation and I was just thinking about those
opera houses and the role that they played in those communities, you
know, theater. Exactly. It really pulls the community together and that's the
one event everybody turns out whether it's a movie or a show or whatever
the whole community can.
Anybody else have any of these? I just kind of want making sure we're
keeping the conversation going and I don't think there's anything wrong
with all of a sudden something d something dawn on something that go
back on. I think the only con is and we alluded to it a little bit but it's worth
writing down is circulation ADA access it's performing arts in that building
if it's there's some di culties and another column would be parking
presumably got some parking limitations I think when you look down since
you kind of talked about a lot of these conversations are naturally going to
Could it coexist with town hall? That might be a good one to some of
these could easily coexist and some of them can't. So that might be a nice
one to di erentiate because you're not talking most of these you're already
not talking about necessarily putting the entire 1934 building towards that
one use.
So some of them are conducive with either each other or a hybrid
municipal o ce and others aren't. But you're probably not going to do
housing and town hall. So that would not be a sign. So certain ones pay,
others don't. Even retail probably doesn't really pair with pair, right?

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I I would say performing arts does. Uh non-governmental or like nonpro t
organizations can pair uh the community groups, all the di erent
community groups and functions we have. Those are natural pairing
compared to some of them just don't look quite ted. If you pull that string,

a little bit. Does anybody think a standalone town hall said you said no
we're not open town hall we're just going to keep town hall what are we
going to do with that building as a you said oh I don't think the community
can support
another building that you're going to he for what I'm saying is that I think
the coexisting question is very very very important because I don't think
you're going to have the support of the community to say we're going to
keep this town but this other building we're now going to create a new
performing arts center or something that would and now we're going to
heat it and we're gonna take it up to actual you know I just think it's you I
think if you have a coexisting I know I wouldn't support that well especially
especially building a school that actually supports some of those other
uses going to be more community event space within the school itself
yeah but I'm just saying I think we got to be careful I the coexisting part is
very important so maybe a con then is unlikely community would
supporting a freestanding performing arts. I would star that supplementary
uses.
I just think you'd have a tough sense people and I think of my mother
whatever years old to say, don't we have a community site? Don't we have
a pool? Don't we have a you know I was talking the other night. I've been
actually talking to a lot of my friends. What do you think?
What do you think? I did the other night and one of the question one of the
comments they brought in the gym that they use at the pool is antiquated.
Why can't you put a gym and a something at that? I don't know. I'll keep it
in my brain.
I mean, people are creatively thinking what else you could do with that
building. But I think that coexist question helps you sell the project. I think
you did put uncertain demand there on the con side. Yeah, I put may lack
community support. Um, and that's I think that kind of goes into don't
know if there's a need.

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Right. Okay. Maybe should just clarify for a freestanding. That's di erent
than complimentary or supplemental freestanding. That's a good example
of coexisting. I went down to Fort Williams for my annual lunch lobster roll
place. That was a good idea to rent space to have other outside vendors

instead of the town trying to be in business for the rest of the town trying
to, you know, I think that's worked out nicely to have some vendors down
there that they're making some money.
The town's making some money buying what you need instead of the
town being in the restaurant business. And I think we might want to put
that on the list of of I don't know if it's pro or con, but operate question
mark. Is it the town? Is it is it an outside group that we leased it to?
Even if it's for a dollar, but they operate as well, right? We're in that in the
schools, right? We're in that in the community service and in the art for
digital arts it's okay. So with with that one we're going to move on. Um,
and I'm putting that on like who operates because I think that is a sort of a
I don't know where where that lies, but all right.
Um, and I'm just doing that because we have seven more of these to go.
Um, so the next one is nonpublic schools, trades, charter, special needs,
adult learning. Um, and I don't know if anybody can think of a better term
than non-public, but it's just sort of to di erentiate between what is right
there. Now, I think a con to Patrick's point is uh that it likely did not focus.
Well, I I don't know if you could, but this is looking at it a we're looking at
this as a freestanding option. This is like we sell it to there's a Christian
academy that wants to come space like that place out on Broadway that's
South Corbin School on Broadway. So yeah, I agree that it would be very
di cult to kind of intermingle all functions in a school unless it's a very
very small school.
What was the ad hoc school down there on the same used time of day?
So to you know where might be after town hall out or at least varian by
weekend. So yeah, to that point it would be all the same values under the
pros. It's it's compatible with the adjacent school be very with the with the
school itself right now with how it's designed, right?

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Having an whether it's vocational schooling or alternative schooling or or
private charter would be very compatible with the surrounding state
campus. could be compatible because I've worked on some of these
facilities and the reason that they are a standalone is because they have
behavioral problems and it's a speci c school for that need and having
them operate on this campus with other another school may be di cult.

You need to go participate with like PRTC to do plumbing and heating
tricks or nursing, right? I mean, right now our kids get bust University of
New England came in and said we're going to do nursing and dental
assistance transitions before they go to college. I don't know. It could be.
Yeah.
And I meant more as like the current layout of it. And you're it's got
classrooms right now. It's got bathrooms. It's for students. Add that in.
Structurally, I would imagine that's one of the most compatible uses for
the existing. That's right. I I've added that to both.
Is it compatible with the current school of state of the school and the
location? What? I would say the building structure I think it's a di erent
issue to me adjacent uses I would do separate bullet it's just that the
building is just like Amed said the building is not very conducive to doing a
large performance art presumably it would be I mean we all know it was
just it is used as a school right now but my understanding is the reason we
need a new school because of this building more than any other
component of the building is this building does not
function well for school function. Well, this that's a school board decision
that was made and so I get what you're saying arguments in but I know
there's arguments across town about what that means and but we don't
as the town council we don't have any that that separate layer of
government over there with the school board and they're the ones who
made that decision.
So I just I don't want to reopen old arguments about the school bot which I
think so I'm just my point is that we can't say a pro is that it's a school and
it works really well as a school when we're hearing from those from a
school in town saying it doesn't work well as a school.

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Yeah, we did a sidewalk and there's any change anything on this list is
going to take money to change like the assumption is you're spending
money to moving in. So like they're going to have to make improvements
on any of these. So like I'm not as again you're going to have to pay to to
to do whatever you're going to do.

Maybe the private school only has 12 people for the space that the public
school is trying to put 20. So yeah and but it's all going to cost as
somebody who taught in that building for many many years it has a lot of
right it has a lot of problems I don't know if it was the only reason other
reasons why there as well but it was I had no love as a teacher to a
building it was not an easy building to teach in however I suspect that
the renovations that would be necessary for other teaching uses would be
less than potentially the renovations for Charles or other things would be a
guess just because obviously it's laid out in a suitable way. It's just not
designed for 25 kids in the type of work that we do in the middle school.
Exactly. Yeah.
And I also don't this is one of those where um it's like is there a need for
this? Do we have people contacting Pat saying, "Hey, do you guys have
anything in town?" Because I really want to build that school. know that
music school that the two yeah graduated only two people only two
people in two years so I wouldn't say high demand at least whereas no
one has said they want to open a private school I know one of the people
that was involved and they're no longer trying to seek out a school some
of the cons
would be our location let's cut to the chase you'd have to drive o Route
77 we are out on a cape it is not easy to get here there is no public
transportation there is It's not on the way to anything. So for non town
use, the location is not ideal. Something like that. Okay.
For regional or accessibility. Okay. Yeah. Because if it is a Yeah. Great
point to get to Cape Elizabeth. Yeah. It's not It's awesome. I tell people it's
great living here, but it's horrible living here to get to the turnpike interstate
to get to the other side of Portland.

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It's not you have a kid coming from Yarmouth to get through the city and
rush. You know, it's just it's a detriment. I'm not saying it's a dealbreaker.
I'm just saying it's not a big issue. No, it's I think it's a great point because
if you have a school that's let's say let's say specializing in special needs,
they want to be as central as they can to six communities that all have
students needing that

Not to commit to anything, but see what kind of designer need. This is one
of those I I kind of don't know whether it's a pro or con. So yeah, does it
ll a need or is there a need? So just going to put under pro just because
we have more space over here.
So And and I would argue Jonathan in terms of need I mean there's been
a big shift within education towards trying to do more experiential
education more vocational development. I think panning here today she's
been I know she's worked some with uh people in the school district on
this. You have three or four sta people who are really working pretty
extensively on in you know moving outside of that traditional model of
education just being hands-on academic work and how do we integrate
with the community link students to businesses I'm
thinking of maker spaces more hands-on I think I mentioned earlier all the
kids at the middle school want to learn how to cook I mean there's this
movement back away from the three Rs to doing more you know a lot
more kids are thinking about maybe I should become a plumber because I
don't know if I'm going to have jobs with AI.
So there's some shifting the way on and are thinking about what type of
education should we be providing and and some of those types of
education require alternative spaces where that work can be done. I had
that conversation this weekend with a friend whose kids are in high school
and they're very concerned about AI and they're choosing their career
path based on what is AI proof and he's one of his sons thinking.
Yeah, I had a similar conversation with a parent I bumped into walking
saying, "I just think my kid had to go to college and now I'm wondering,
they're telling me maybe they don't want to go to college because then
how are Cape Elizabeth schools preparing them for whatever their next
step is. There were people that were safe that went to came to see for a
grant for just a basically to bring in people who worked in the trades to talk
to the students and there were over 100 students that went

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it's not a regional basically to the point of need we got some opinions from
Brandon Mel about the building and would it make sense to go to some of
the commercial realtors like Mus like D And do they have an inventory of
clients who are looking for that type of thing? No, just just hold it.

and they were hoping for 50 students but it's the same same reason that
we used to have the best industrial arts program in southern Americ 67. I
mean it used to be the best and that's it's really good points to shop
classes even in recent years they've always been they always ll up right
away. I taught at CCC for seven years and if I said one thing the freshman
kids coming in were illprepared for their hand skills.
It wasn't the English, it wasn't the algebra. It was hand skills. I think the
con though along those lines is I'm not sure this building works well for
vocational. I think it works well potentially for health care, things like that.
But vocational, you need wide open space, you need high ceilings, you
need certain ability to circulate air well.
And that's potentially woodworking. You need back for the air. It's an
awesome idea. It's expensive, but I agree with you. I don't think that
building the so your suggestion of nursing and things like that could work
in this building, but it's also like I was thinking of what you guys both said
about accessibility um regionally to like adult ed.
If you were going to make an adult bed program, there would probably be
Cape Elizabeth people that would be going because it would be very
unlikely that somebody because Portland has adult bed. So people who
live in Portland want to just drive out to cave to go to adult bed when
there's already opportunities in Portland for that.
So probably dead is limited rst priority to Portland residents and there are
long waits. Yeah, right. There is maybe we may be able to answer that
because community service a day later it's open to non residents if there's
adult ed classes that don't ll we could ask them are you getting people
from South again I think there's some great discussion points there of if it
could coexist and I'll give you a couple examples which I think would be
home run community services probably need more space and they could
feed that CP PR classes, rst aid, American heart.

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You know, there's some basic classes that people are yearning for. You
can't get them. You got to go to Ron to get them. Um I'm sorry. EMT. Oh
my god. Yeah. Well, that was one one thing, Kevin, when we went to
community service, that was like Cath was basically like we're happy
where we are right now, but we can always use more space for more
programs.

So, but we'll get to that. Sorry. Uh, anybody else have anything on the
schools? I just again don't know if it's procon, but this current federal
administration is cracking down right now on funding for this type certain
types of nonpublic schools. And there was a they just shut down half a
dozen schools in Maine that we're receiving funding for.
And those were the schools that were kind of growing. Some of them I'm
sure are doing very good things. It sounds like some of them. Um but so
the the growth that maybe was there is maybe dialed back a touch just in
the last week or two. Okay. So yeah.
Okay. I wouldn't write on the back of that but Parker so pretty hard to
read. Okay, so the next one would be kind of a small business commercial
o ce space remote um remote work model. Write this correctly. Um I
don't again this is one of those like is there a need and I know that there's
a lot of people in cable that do work remotely.
I don't know whether or not they would sign up to pay to go to a small
space, but um so I'd say couldn't ll a need for workers. Pat, what was the
data at the basketball court when we talking on Brandon Mitchell? Was he
saying that there's a market for these? Oh, no.
There's a big market for what he was referring to see other places. This is
a a small business condos. So, it's sort of a hybrid between it's not going
the route of an industrial park, but it's more than a business park. So, what
it is is it's like 2500 square feet. you get one overhead door o ce space or
showroom space, but it usually is one of those a small electrician uh a
specialty plumbing xture place might have like their showroom, but also a
couple people might come and go out to get to inventory.
So, for this building, we just said there's a lot of there's a lot Yeah. And
they kind of make them look they make them look as as residential condo
as they can, but it's a very commercial thing. Yeah, they're super It's a roll
of door. It's a bathroom. It's a mezzanine for storage and you can park
your trucks in it.

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It's not doesn't work. Okay. But public facing looks like all right. I mean,
one con is that this would break up sort of the I don't want to say break
up, but it would I don't know if it'd be conducive to school needs like it

would be a private use on a school campus that might not really jive with
what's happening on that.
So incompatible to surrounding. Yes, I think you go back to that operator
question too. Does the town want to be building it out, sta ng it, and
potentially losing money subleasasing essentially desks? Or would they or
are you bringing in an operator? And if so, is there an operator interested?
I mean, I know I looked at a co-work space a year and a half ago and I got
a call back three months after I called them to say we have space
available. So, there was no space in town. Co-work space. But the cowork, the operator has to rent the space at market.
Say it's $20 a square foot and then they have to ll it at a number above
that really thin on that. You have to be in you have to be in a very dense
area and have a lot of tenants. Yeah. It's almost like a barber shop that
rents out the chairs to barbers.
They run or like they run the whole place but every little thing is just rented
out to someone else and they're providing sort of or like a gym. You're
renting the space you get enough enough members that you can pay for
the space. Yeah. I think something realtor was me uh the commercial real
estate agent who came and um I forgotten his name.
I'm sorry. I think he something he was mentioning was that Cape Elizabeth
just doesn't have the draw in terms of the density of population to really
attract retail. It's just really hard to get retail to Cape in general. And if it's
hard on 77, I think it would be way harder on Scout Road where there's no
visibility at that particular building with any o ers visibility.
And to that point, if you're asking a third party group to come in and build
it out or nance it, banks are not lending an o ce. So the building there's
a building that my company worked on, they found a single lender in
downtown Boston, a single lender, a sovereign home from the Middle East
lending at 13% for a downtown o ce.

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There's no one interested in placing money behind o ce. One of the
questions I have, Pat, is does a town like to be a landlord? I mean, we
we're a limited landlord. We had the building, we had the o ce over by
Korean services. We probably have some independence over at the fort.

But you know, is that our core competency to be the land? No. All that
implies our interests, our interests, our specialty, and our sta ng of itself.
We're only a landlord out of necessity. doesn't lend well to town being a
landlord. And and furthermore, if we wanted the town wanted to get better
at the landlord business, we have buildings that are literally being used for
storage.
I mean, the re station at Fort Williams is storage. Yeah, there's a lot more
than it's a beautiful building. It would be a I've always thought the lobster
truck should go in there and operate a little restaurant thing, but right now
it's storage for events that have a one or two. I I did write in said a but it
would make a landlord.
whether or not you want that above. Also, I I don't I hate to I don't want to
speculate, but I think that there are some remote working spaces in town,
and I don't know if they're all lled or there there's a wait list. Wasn't there
one wasn't there one in the plaza that did not that didn't work?
I don't know if she was getting something weird with that to rent space for
them and they o cially ran the post o ce moved from the IG over there
and they realized they couldn't make any money from the post o ce and
she had four o ces to rent. I think she rented a couple. I just didn't hold
the stick.
Yeah, I just I didn't want to speculate too much at public meeting about
what happened to that. But I but that's a that's a question like is there and
I don't know if it was precoid or post I don't I can't post it post I can't
remember I think I think this I think this type of model is really di cult to do
in a small scale just like a lot of other businesses you need a critical mass
typical in order to pay for someone to have a desk I had a mail drop in
town co-working spaces and you go in there and it's buzzled and I think
that that's what the

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people like is I mean if I'm going to work remotely and pay for it, I probably
want to be in a place that makes you feel like you're in an o ce building as
opposed to being in a very sparsely populated o ce building. I think one
tying what you're saying is we used to have two places you had a post
o ce box in town and I think that's a need in the town to have a post
o ce box and maybe you tie that in with a few workstations

and be able to ship stu like FedEx or UPS because if you go to South
Portland or Portland now you get packages. I mean I think that's a creative
way. Could it coexist? Yes. But you could go in and my sister-in-law has a
post o ce box in Portland. She goes in twice a week to get her mail.
Uh, We used to have it down at the old post o ce by the oor and one at
the beach. Why don't we see so many small town by law my kids were
scared to death about that. She always gave candy though. Done. Check.
We get seven more volts.
All right. So, anything more on this? I mean, I think you on a pro. I'm just
trying to be fair here. I I don't personally support this, but I I think it could
serve as an incubator space for local small businesses. The the ip side of
that is that incubator spaces typically charge lower rents in order to enable
people to get their foot in the door and grow a business.
So it would not be necessarily a revenue generator be more of a quality
town service. And how about anybody? I mean this well in theory it might
work well with town hall functions depending on the type of business but I
don't know. So I don't know. I think it could you could put this all together.
You know if they were on the lower level second third oor you got that
entert totally di erent door. I think I think it would eliminate that mixed use
of the same space. So yeah, it could exist but you have to like give that
would like occupy its oor. It wouldn't be something you then use for any
municipal.
It would just be closed o . And I think if the concept would be to bring that
space into o set costs or generate revenue, this is potentially one that's
not the highest potential for that. It would be very expensive to build out
and may not generate. John, I'd love to add under pro.

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I I have not thought about the packages that that Kevin mentioned and I
am running up to Mil Creek all the time to send packages and I live at that
end of town. I'm thinking somebody who's down at Broad Cove, that's
going to be long haul for them. I wonder if there's enough demand for
interest and whether that type of business would say, "Yeah, we can open
up another." But that's just an interesting need that I could see

potentially being Yeah, that would probably fall. Yeah, that would probably
fall under when we talk about retail space because this is kind of more
speci c to these small level models. Oh, wasn't this retail space that we're
talking about? No, it's kind of the remote o ces, small business, sort of
the the models that they use.
But we'll we'll get to the retail space. Yeah. The reason the post o ce
thing came up is because we were talking about the example of quote
unquote I thought I thought we were discussing retail here. bedroom. to
get retail ten. Yeah, it is kind of hard to Okay.
Um, so community programs, kind of the community hub type thing that
Kevin brought up about like could this be similar to the South Portland
Community Center. I think a con is we already have a homebased curfew
services. I think community center in South Poland what I when I started
bringing myself I think for the last meeting what I envision is that if city hall
or town halls in the rst couple oors but third oor used to be a gym you
have a
walking track and you also have a room that didn't provide for like
sheltering like we had a school the other day you can provide a walking
that's what south is it's not community services like our community
services it's totally di erent they have a big community room that they do
awards nights and stu for school functions but it's not like our community
services more like multi-purpose multi-urpose it looked like the piece
thank you for sharing that piece on Windham it sounded like Windham
was seriously thinking of going that kind of a model combining town
hall and community center is also library yeah possibly yeah I don't know if
they're adding that on their question so Portland is really unique and it's
really served a really good purpose because like I said a couple of big
storms we had the community just came out place to charge your phones,
have co ee, get information from the town.

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The town manager or the re chief or police chief would be there sharing.
We used that as a shelter one night where elderly people with like 30 cops
and the Red Cross came in. I mean, it's just a di erent component we
don't have in this town right now. And one of the things too when South
built there is they built around the pool.

It is a pool was already existing there and then they kind of built o that
and we talking about the rec. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think of that as
being the recreation. You walk in, there's a gymnasium, there's pools, but
it's very there is a lot there is way more going on over there than is going
on at community services.
Yeah, the facilities there's people playing in the corner very building.
They've got senior services going there. I I would love to see in there that
Pat's statement about something earlier that it really lls it lls a missing
gap, a public gap that isn't going to be provided by the private sector.
You're not going to have the private sector providing emergency shelter.
I mean, I look at the storm we had here the other day. There were people
showing up at the re station for information. Shouldn't they should not be
at the re station. Should be at a community building with town manager.
So, the police chief will be here in a half an hour explain what's going on
with public works director.
It keeps the people away from those tracks and using a school for that.
And while I know a lot of communities around the state say we just use the
school, it doesn't work. Then you compromise the school's ability to open
if you are using it as a shelter or using it for something else. I think the
challenge with South Portland's community service or recreation building
is that it's it has everything under one roof.
Putting a component of that in this building, but still having community
service and still having the high school being cool chops it up and you
lose that critical mass from a e ciency standpoint from sta ng from from
operations, all those things. So that's a that's a con I think is that we
already have a pool in one building with the gym.
We have community service that o ers, you know, senior programming
and after school programming. And then this would be a third community
space. And that's why I argue with you. We have a community space we
use at the re station. We should not be using that room before. We need
more space.

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You're using the re station all the time for community events. And we get
pushed out. Right now, there's ve people working down there. And I bet
there's a public meeting going on at the re station that should not be

there. But I think I think what Brian's point is that South Portland
Community Center has a pool, has a gym space center, too.
We have another one right back. Yeah. But but we're not going to build
another pool. No, no, no. But we're still on the same campus though,
right? Yeah. I hate the fact that I Yeah, I would I I tend to It doesn't bother
me that they're separate buildings.
They're all on one campus. And it the model would be that it's exactly the
same as South Portland. Every community center or hub is di erent. But
that I think being that campus location I think is a real pro. The other pro
we have here in Gate that South Poland does not have is the walkability,
bikeability, driveability of our town.
In South Poland you are split by the interstate. The turn bike Broadway is
not a walkable city. You have to get in your car and drive from Red Bank to
the community center where even if you're in Broadco or two lights, you're
a mile and a half. Yeah. Oh, no.
Yeah, I was going to write that this would ll what community services said
to us about needing more space for programs. So, I I think we're talking
very vague in terms of community space, but I don't understand what that
will look like if we already have a pool and a gym. We already have
community services operating out of that building where you walk in there
as a front desk.
To have another community space that needs to be sta ed with a
reception, unless there's a very speci c need of what that space is being
used for, I can't I can't get my head around it. So, you're saying what what
Kevin is saying, if you have this space that could be this community
function, why isn't community services already doing it?
Well, you walk into South the current community service. You walk into
South Portland, they can operate all of those functions. recreation,
community service, shelter, everything from a single desk. We have a pool,
we have community service, adding a third space that who would operate
it? Is it community service operating it?

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And then they have to sta it and have someone full-time over there and it
might not the they already meet the majority of their operating needs in the

community service building. They suggested a couple needs that they or
that they could expand into, but operationally it's it's well I guess the call is
operationally again that my argument is most bases are not sta ed.
So like some Cape Fire Station is not sta ed and I if you called and said I
want to hold a CPR class the town would say the community service well
you can have the room at the re station. They have a calendar you get
online and you do it there's no sta . They give you a door code the back
door code and you get in the back door and have the bathrooms and the
rooms full you can.
So I think we there is a need for additional communal space but I I know in
schools for instance I don't know if people live but a lot of schools if you
want to hold a meeting you have to pay for four hours of a janitor to be
there to open and close that space. Yeah, that's not always I mean see we
do our meetings in the K high school library.
So I I think that there's there could be but I I mean I get both of you guys
points and I mean to me community services we could have community
services operating like you're talking about right now. Why aren't we? Is it
because there's not a need? Is it because of sta ng issues?
Is it because community services is outstraed and and we're not doing it?
So, um if if there is that need for safe space after a storm, uh warming
shelters or cooling shelters for EC because a lot of people in town don't
have it and the library was doing that a month ago for that. Why aren't why
isn't the community services building now doing what you're talking
about?
So, maybe it's a bigger question. In an ideal world, you'd have a
community center that had everything in one place if you would build a
brand new one. But that's not going to happen at Cape Elizabeth. And so I
think what you were referring to, Kevin, correct me if I'm wrong, is that this
would be a space where we would have those functions that aren't
currently accommodated by the community services building, such as we
don't have a warming shelter.

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We don't really have any kind of senior programming space that seniors
can call their own, a senior center if you may. Um we don't have uh extra
gym space which has come up repeatedly even though we have it in the

schools. There's this constant con ict at the schools between the high
school basketball team, the middle school basketball team, the eight
community members who want to play volleyball.
So we there it's been raised that we could use an extra gym space. So this
would be a space ideally yes we'd put it all together but the likelihood of
that happening big. I don't think it's very high, but you have a building here
where potentially some of those functions could go that's on the same
campus at least, which is not perfect, but is it better than not having that
at all?
I think you sense to highlight the senior programming because just look at
the age of take and there's a lot of places that don't just run at all. You
know, you could have like you got age friendly communities all over the
state of Maine. That's sort of a nd a reasonable budget where it
sometimes takes on its own sort of space and feel versus just community
service program and there isn't a lot of that in Cape right now.
The library has done an awesome job at really trying to cater to teenagers
and some of that that that part of the market but I'm not sure I'm not sure
seniors have a lot of places to go and yeah I think resources has a lot of
programming for it but it's just again spread out across all these di erent
spaces.
Okay. And I did people didn't see that could coex just the town hall
business. Um, anybody else many pros, cons thoughts on this one? Okay.
All right. Now, I'll just page I probably ruin that. Okay, next one. Housing.
Here's a name that has been communicated by the town to a location in
this proximity and to your I had a chance to look through some of
the I think what was especially highlighted in that was the diversity of
housing. It's a capable of single family houses and there's nothing wrong
with that. But that doesn't mean that everybody needs someone who can't
care for a house, someone who's just starting out only needs a small
space. And when you say, is it speci c to that?

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I just mean it the 1934 building. So it would be it would be apartments or
condos. Yeah. But but that no study that they did yeah really showed that
there was de nitely need for a ordable housing for workforce housing.
A ordable housing. Yeah. That was that was what the comprehensive um

I think it's any because I'm my big right out of the gate. I don't think the
whole complex is So I'm going to put that at the con. Yeah. But over here
on the other side of the road, why not? I think Pat's point earlier is that it's
likely used in the building.
I mean, are we again? So we're going to build next door. We're going to
build out back. So I was on this side of the road versus over that side.
What do you think structurally? How compatible is the building for during
housing? It's compatible.
It's not hard. I mean you see people's beautiful. The other one's B school.
They did that one. I think it was a river play. You did a great job. Yeah. I
mean, yeah, it's it's you have to completely gut it and it's, you know, the
nancing on it to do a ordable housing or any lower than market housing
is a challenge.
That's why you don't typically see that type of housing. Well, then the only
type of housing is nancially viable is because they'll spend 15 million to
build a $10 million building because the nancing is to support. It would
be really interesting to see the numbers on this project start to nish if it
comes to fruition right next door here versus that or the same comparable
number of units.
behind that was pretty quick. Yeah. Oops. All right. So, I have a town hall
becomes available for housing to be compatible with the school structure.
I did add um uh would not work. Okay. So located on the school campus
as a con would not work with town hall business could be costly.

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We got it for renovation. I wanted to make the town a landlord. If the town
was to say we're going to build housing and then people are going to rent
from us or you're going to be housing that might force the town to have to
sell because of the cost. Um, I think along those lines, other communities
have a housing authority or I don't know many towns that build market
housing, but other towns have a housing authority already has the function
in place to build it.

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could we twisted to say that if we move town hall over there this site
becomes available for that?

So, Cape would be to them. Cape would have to probably establish a
housing authority. I don't know. Fine. I'm asking question South Portland
housing authority would do project in people Elizabeth or it would be a
prime or a nonpro t like Ever one you might want to add is just uh
because it does seem to get discussed in a lot of towns is if you are going
to
play landlord a lot of towns will explore workforce housing for the
municipal with some sort of like push or availability to municipal workforce
force like your police or re or people with their rst three years of
employment have a apartment so they could at least move here from
another location. A lot teachers. Yeah.
Yeah. Teachers, front frontline workers. Um you see it a lot in ski towns
actually where they have a program either for sale units or rent and you
have to just sell it right back into the program and it's only for employees
of the industry there. It's Yeah, I think the central location is a pro for
housing, especially for a ordable housing or senior housing in terms of
access to town facilities.
Although we don't have a lot of public transit here, the most likely place
would be down 77. So just having the access to, you know, central
location for walkability, walkability, potential access to public transit Um
yeah, so one one thing I did talk to I um had um talking with this uh
individual who works for the um National Trust for Historic Preservation, I
think it is, and he was telling there there are um opportunities out there for
grants um for
tax credits that go even beyond just doing housing or um a ordable
housing or things along those lines. Um if we were to get into um this is
another discussion for another day, but um it it left me feeling a little bit
better about where that um the state of we did keep it for municipal use
and um went towards uh trying to make it as a a town hall function that
there were more opportunities out there than I initially had thought.

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So, but that's kind of a side thing. I thought I heard Andy ask me about
that. So, just let me just add the rst bullet from Kevin. You said on school
campus you can start with safety. Yeah. Thank you. The top part and I'll
say it delicately so AI doesn't butcher me.

South Poland Housing Authority. had a ton of experience working with
them and a lot of the buildings they built way back catered to the elderly.
You cannot do that anymore strictly. So that brings in a di erent amsy
residents I'll call in which create a lot of other issues some good some bad
put that on a school I would be dead against it I've watched it I can take
you down to 425 Broadway which used to be the
most beautiful little senior citizen building in South Portland and 10 soul
street next door if you went down there now you wouldn't recognize so
housing sometimes can bring unknown di erent it brings in di erent
clients that I don't think is compatible with the schools Personally, if I was
a parent, I wouldn't want some of those. Those people need residents.
I think this side of the road, a little distance from the schools, security,
there's bu er zones around schools. It's also a broad you talk about
a ordable housing, there's a broad range of ways to build that based on
funding. like if you lose low income has some tax credits the tenants
actually have to make meetable income and then they're capped based on
maximum.
There's actually a pretty narrow band where residents have to meet this
income whereas like section 8 housing those residents can they just pay
30% of their income whether it's zero or whatever the number is. So
there's all these di erent funding sources and that result in di erent types
of housing more force housing is often done with low income housing tax
credits for instance whereas section 8 is more housing authorities and you
know there's there's and then housing
authority which is scary thousands and then there's also people Elizabeth
doesn't have it but uh literally dozens of towns in New England have
inclusionary zoning where every 10 marketing units that get built even by a
private developer one has to be a ordable in the development. Yeah, I
think that we do. So that inclusionary units are getting there two crossill
was the rst development that actually did that and if you drive through
there's one case actually goes beyond what a lot of the Okay, I'm sorry.

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Yeah, there's one cape and then there's two duplexes in cross sale that
met those requirements back in the early 2000 when All right. Um,
anything more on housing? We could probably spend all night on housing,

but I I think the only other con is that once it goes housing, it's never being
used from something else.
Whereas like the o ce use could eventually be town hall use or or it could
change to community use, but housing is nothing. Right. most likely
housing forever or something like that. Yeah, there's nothing forever but
we get it or something that I'll say how it would say or not exibly for
alternative uses down the line.
Yeah, that's good. Last mill in All right. Anything else on housing? Twice a
day. So, we're going to move to uh use of it as a non-governmental
organization. I don't see this one as being any di erent than the o ce one.
It's a o ce type use and it's a matter of whether the town manages it or
it's spaces that you're renting to people to use similar to well yeah this one
I thought was a little the only di erence though I think is sort of the
revenue generator
because my thought would be if we're giving the nongovernmental
organizations that it might be something that you're not requiring a lot of
space or a lot of rent does historical society being ranked over at Fort
Williams over here. We'll move on. This would be very very compatible
with as a like a complimentary use to a town hall.
Yeah. Right. I mean because they're we're talking like quasi public
organizations like historical society is not a business. SE is not a business.
Right. So they're kind of these entities that um need a home, meet the
needs of the community. So in that sense, they're very much public
services, but they can't a ord a lot.
So or the land trusts. You can't do it a public service. You might want to
group those two together. Okay. Oh, yeah. All right. We're going out. Yeah.
I kind of I was thinking of them as the same.

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So yeah, why why don't we do that? Are you guys okay with that? Saved a
whole bout of time. And I think a con, and this goes to any any use where
the town is renovating the building and then making it available for
someone else, is the return on cost. I think for some people that's an issue
but maybe not others.

I mean is that point that happens usher certain services that that a town
provides that are just I don't know are people really saying are we getting
our money's worth society other than storage society which has
documents and storage needs we were really talking about meeting
space. Yeah. Which is pretty easy to create and be used for whether it is
town or not.
So like it de nitely works. There's a already a need a huge need and I go
back to everything we talking about compatibility and it like could be used
by the during business hours not if I imagine this is on the ground oor.
Yes. I guess I I I think from a long-term municipal use standpoint, I get the
idea of having this extra space from a purely address the need in the most
e cient manner.
If you need 2,000 square feet, go to the IGA plaza when a space is
available at least 2,000 ft. It's going to be monumentally more a ordable
than building it in this building. Yeah, I get what you're saying. and I tried
to write this accurately. So, it it would be costly to renovate and then the
return on dollars and cents perspective might be lacking for that return.
Um, but to Laura's point, you're providing a service like I don't think
anybody in town is really upset with the historical society being over at
Fort Williams, but also we rented through these doors, which is a domestic
violence advocacy program as well. And so that provides space for
advocates who go out and lead and speak and help victims of domestic
violence work.
And I don't think there's many people in town that are like, let's up their
rent, you know, like it's because well but maybe we could if we went to a
private sector, but because I think there's a nice balance there by
providing that public service. I like the common theme of tonight though.
Everything we've talked about led us back to compatible with the
municipal use.

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So with that, going back to what he's been always talking, buckets,
buckets, buckets. Do we build a bucket of compatible uses with town
hall? So, and I'm just throwing this out there. Don't shoot the messenger.
Hypothetically, you come forward after you say, "Our recommendation is
to move town hall over to that building and utilize 16,000 square feet, 18, I

don't know how many square feet." And this other space is open for
further
discussion for the future council for potentially these buckets of
compatible uses instead of saying you ought to do ABCD me. I mean I
could be sold on a community track upstairs or a gym. It used to be a
gym, you know. I think but instead of trying to get pigeon holed, I like your
bucket theme all throughout this whole if if town hall need pat and said,
"Hey, I think I need 18,000, 16, whatever that is." We're still going to have
a lot of square feet.
You don't need to make that decision, but here's a bucket that the
committee came up with of eight di erent potential uses. And then you
bring in Jim talked about earlier then you bring in a architect or a space
person for that's come and then you also pull this building and say what
do we move from here to o ers in the area that we're building housing
here's opport opportunities there as well.
So, you kind of have your buckets, right? It's kind of cool, too. No, I I think
it's I think it's great. And I think I think that I don't think I said this either
during my presentation and not in speaking to that reporter, but like I don't
think I said that the 1934 building was double the space here because it's
not from a square footage perspective.
So, that was not accurate in that article. But again, I think that's important
what you're just talking about. We we're just giving information to the town
council. And one of the things that I want people I was going to mention
this at the end of the meeting, but I think this is a good time to mention
this is if people don't remember, one of the things that my hope is,
and this is obviously contingent on what you all think as well, um is that at
this this report, this nal report that we're all kind of preparing as we move
along here, everyone's going to have an opportunity to kind of write what
their thoughts are. And I think that we should have at the end of the report
what people's thoughts are on the work that we've all done and which
direction we go in because I think that it's going to be important for
community members to look and say,

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"Hey, what does Kevin Eon think about this? He's the only guy I know on
this committee and see what your thoughts are." And if those are like, hey,

I think this is pretty millions use, but I think because the town hall
requirements for square footage isn't going to be necessary for that space
that we're going to have a lot of extra space, we could do leave it open or
we could designate it for community space or for
community groups or non-governmental organizations, something like
that. Or Laura thinks that we should have a gym on the second oor and
you could put that in there, too. So, while we go through this, I really do
want people to think about what your personal thoughts are. Obviously,
we're a collective group as well, but we're going to give that opportunity.
Um, because I I have seen a lot of committees in town sometimes where
it's just like, no, there has to be one voice only coming out of this. And it's
going to depend on what the vote of the committee is. And I just don't I
don't want that to be this committee. I want us as a group to be talking
and discussing all these points, but then individually be able to articulate
what um what where have we gone to on a personal level for people to to
see for counselors to see that report at the end.
So, and again, you want to write one sentence or no sentence or three
pages, it's up to you. Um, but I do want people to kind of think about that
because yeah, we have more many more months on this committee, but
ultimately at the end we're going to kind of get to that. And I think that's a
hugely important point.
There's I won't go o too much of a tangent, but there's a TED talk where
they talked about designing pasta for Ragu. I think they're trying to design
the best pasta sauce. The guy said, "You can't because you only ever
please 60% of the people. You need to create di erent sauces for di erent
people and then you can please 100% of the people.

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So I think it's important we're not going to be able to deliver one package
that pleases everyone. They need to understand that there's the nuance of
di erent views and those pieces together are going to be able to create
the program. And we might say, you know what, we think this is going to
be a fantastic idea to do municipal use and have community space and
you bring it to the council and the council starts hearing from people in the
community and say no we don't want to spend the money we're don't
want to have the building

anymore and the council votes to get rid of the building like that could
happen um and so despite all our work here and what we might think as a
group or think individually it might not be which way the the council goes
but I still think and I really value the work that we're we're doing here and
my hope is that people in the community are starting to kind of see what
we were doing and try to pay attention.
I mean, you can tell by the audience tonight, everybody is just clamoring
to get into hear our discussions going and I think that the point and we've
talked about, you know, the potential sale of this building. I think one thing
that municipalities make the mistake of doing is keeping a building just in
case and we do it in cable.
the Spurering School. There's buildings in Fort Williams that are unused
and this is another building that is adding square footage and we don't
want to create needs that may not be there. We're not trying to create new
services that the town or the community may not need. I think we have to
make sure we're meeting all the needs of the community in the space that
can provide it.
But I think we have to be very careful to not let this the massive square
footage that we manage as a town in ate if the need isn't there. So back
on this, anybody else have any speci c pros and cons for these? Um,
yeah. On the pros for the NOS's, I I've been thinking a lot about this issue.
You know, if we if we go with the town bombs, let's say, it's going to take
three or four years like probably before the design and the contracts and
everything gets done. This type of use, the NOS's, community groups,
meeting space are is a use that can can get in there pretty early on and ll
almost like a temporary void until we come up with a nal plan.
So, I see that as a pro at this point. NOS's have that exibility. the exibility
and the needs are not structurally. I mean obviously you have to get the
HBAC system but we've talked about not wanting to leave this building
sitting empty for years to years and they are one of the uses that might
have more exibility in ter housing is not going to have that kind of you say

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is it could serve as a potential interim use. Yeah, you'd have to just be able
to kick them back out during construction. Yeah, if you if it seemed like it
was a 10year plan, whatever is an interim use to not have a building sitting

empty. Um so NGOs have exibility to use regarding timing and space
users.
Yeah. And then the one thing is the NOS's aren't going away. There is a
need for them to be able to have space with communicators. What are
what are some NOS's in town right now that have large what are the larger
space users? You have see you have Salt.
Salt has its own o ces. Although they've had a lot of the small they had to
make a decision. They just did a big investment in their o ce space
downtown building. Um Steve rents from a building, but again there's a lot
of groups that I mean through these doors is not it's a Cumberland County
organization.
It's under the umbrella of Masa and it's Cly County, but they use space
occasionally. Sure. There's many probably food pantries that would use a
space. Sports groups. Yeah, sports groups boosters. Um, yeah. I mean,
there's I think of NO. Don't think of Cape speci c.
I think of other we on the council we kind of look into organizations to try
to help out with a nominal amount of money to to provide them. Um I was
actually trying to pick the right page like there's there's there's adult
community or adult protective services APS that's out there. There's um
uh this kind of southern main um agency on um I think it is.
Yeah. So there there's a lot of groups and and they provide a lot of
information to the uh CBPD for scams to be on the lookout. Um I mean
Prebble Street's always got needs. They provide a lot of uh bene ts to
people and even if you don't think that they do, they de nitely have needs
and cable for those.

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So I I think the the balancing act there is that if there's a an NGO that can
provide a service in this community and and adds to this community by
being here. Yeah. And we we're o ering space at at signi cant discount
market to get them in there makes sense. But to just create space at a
very expensive cost for a route that could be accommodated in any other
building in the region, then it begs to the question of is that the best use of
municipal

dollars to renovate this building at $700 a square foot to just to provide
space a ordably to a group that can be down the road, another town, and
they're not necessarily tied to this community. They just need o ce space
essentially. I don't know if that's a good use of the space. There's no
NOS's maybe they're doing international work great organization but we're
giving them space o ce space and the assumption was a small town
regionally based organizations.
No, but I I get what you're saying there too. It's like do we want to do
everything out of the goodness of our heart? Okay, that's great. But that's
going to come with the cost of the taxpayers which maybe the taxpayers
are ne with that but we that's something to just explore.
Okay. Um anything else on this before we go to the last one? We're
actually doing pretty well. I don't know this the last one is retail space and
or retail like shops basically just turning it into commercial use. I think
we're going to probably discuss a lot of the ones that we've already done,
but might as well do it.
A con is this building doesn't have any semblance of a storefront and it
would be di cult to create one because of the rate change. Competing
with other we got a retail space next door for four. Mhm. You can think the
other way of like critical mass too. If you bring in enough of a if you create
enough of a village here, maybe people will come here to get services that
they don't retail retail.
Yeah, retail is nationally. Yeah. David is there's usually a vacant space in
gold shopping center. Yeah. The buildings that start quite often don't last
too long which is not endemic to KO. It's no it's just that you either make it
or you don't. And and two of our retail spaces in town right here are
actually being used for o ce type functions o ces.

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our zoning model of rst oor commercial and that that's not what any no
developer would do that unless they have to comply with that right now
that's not the market wasn't the market when they did group one in South
Portland the residential lled up at the old St. church location and
commercial set up and for years creating retail space is not and I've
worked on projects new construction retail states getting brand new
buildings for two or three years and we end up cutting it up with more

apartments for many years family the funny part is the one I made money
was tiny because all the young mothers could buy it was a destination It
was a studio deck, but all the other retail Aan did okay but it was a
struggle. We we had a rotating that we had four di erent occupancies and
it was a rotation other than tin retail only retail I could ever imagine seeing
like old mill building smaller retail.
No, if you go up to like Brunswick, like you've been to those mill buildings,
they're just divided like 12 feet wide. Tons of like di erent people, you
know, there's artists selling their stu . There's di erent people that type of
thing going, but like because you don't they don't have a storefront
because you're just like hoarding them in the middle.
Somebody just said it too. smaller. Yeah. People coming to town for the
summer to two light state park or crush beach or Fort Williams that are
going down Scott Dire just not conducive to the storm. That's a good
point. It's on Scott Dire versus SE and we based that when we were
talking about retail space on the um on the buildings behind the village
green and about how that even that distance from
Route 77 was going to make rst oor commercial space not as viable as
if you're right out on 77. And at rst I didn't believe it. And then when that
thing sat for 40 years, well that's just that whole village dream was morally
designed for an urban. Thanks for No, if you want if you want retail.
No, no, but that was that was it. And I was I didn't like the idea of giving
up the the rst oor commercial space because I was like I was
envisioning all these shops and restaurants coming in and then it sat and I
mean co happened obviously but there were people on the planning board
at the time that really thought that it was going to sit as well and and then
the council supported the variances for it too but um anyway so not
business destination I think a

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pro is a diversity of tax base and training businesses and employment into
I come back to if you're going to go down a detail this location better
tra c cons. I'm going to be very curious how the new center of town
works out. I've said for 20 years that come to Arm Street where they
entrances one on SC on 77 moving lacrosse car accidents and can't get in
there.

I don't get gas there. I sub it's just it's hard to get in and out of the farms.
Well, I know um it's not not super compatible with the adjacent school.
Yeah. Yeah. Um I said it's yeah not lack of police with school and then
separate from the school functions.
So the other problem with retail if you're not the land hear me out this is
my friends right now. If you're not the landlord and you say sold it to you
you're going to develop it into retail. Yay. Can you control what was in
there for retail? No. Thank you.
And I mean Exactly. So you're opening the door up again next to my
school. Not only that, but the way retail leases are written, they have
exclusions. So once one tenant comes in, if a if it's a food service, they
might exclude any other food service going in and the landlord is willing to
sign and get that tenant in. So it it you see shopping centers with all these
exclusions and it really messes up what can come
into a center. Yeah. It's just too much. And if the town were to retain
control over that decision they made, they could very likely see a lot of
empty spaces. So, it's a risky through Wisconsin and used to be antique
stores. Now, it's big shops. Yeah.
Yeah, I guess back to my back to my point with the other uses, you know,
there's a concern that if the town were to do retail or someone else would
do retail would be vacant and there wouldn't be anyone in there. But some
of the other uses we're proposing from a standpoint of of generating
revenue or activity in the town may not create that much activity either.
I mean, I've seen there was a a bank that I saw got approved that they had
to have a community space in their bank in the front of the bank. So, the
storefront was a community room. Wow. And it didn't get used all day
long. It got used in the evening.

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And it was a really big detriment to that actual storefront location. It would
have been better to have a bank where people are using it in and out. You
just had a it looked like a boardroom against a glass wall and it was empty
all day long and people would have one or two meetings in the evening
and so I think you know I agree that retail is di cult.

Retail could stay empty. It could not generate any revenue but the other
uses we went through they have the same possibility. Even NOS's even
nonpublic schools even commercial o ce, all of them have the potential
that they stay vacant, they don't have tenants, and they don't generate
revenue, right? I mean, if it was empty and we started giving a dollar a
month for rent, we'd probably get some people to come in. Yeah.
But but then at that point, is an NGO or nonpublic school better than retail
at a dollar rent? I don't know. Yeah. Um, and that's always where you kind
of look at whether or not the town should get variances to zoning. And this
one standard usually is does have a positive community impact.
What a large hypers scale data center. It's 10 to 50,000 square feet data
center needs 10,000 revenue. Love that Kevin. Now you're saying no, I'm
just I'm just saying. No, what I'm just saying is I just I just think I just don't
see any retail or commercial that's like I just don't I just don't you can
throw stu at the wall and I I just don't see it.
It's not it's not practical. It's But I think my my point is retail is not
practical. Commercial is not practical. The only reason an NGO would be
practical is because you're giving the space away. Yeah. So you can make
retail viable, you can make viable and if you give it away.
So you have to that's my point. It's like we have to decide what we do,
who's operating it, and what our goals are. If the goal is to get this NGO
into this community to provide services, wonderful. If we're just giving
NGO space because we said it's going to be NGO space, why not an
o ce tenant?
Why not a retail tenant? Why not a di erent tenant if if if those tenants can
bring life to the downtown or they can bring tax base or they can bring
jobs for students. I guess I would argue that that feels to me like a very
much of a private sector point and that there are public sector oftentimes
municipalities provide services that are not provided by the public sector.

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So, and that was my point. If the NGO provides services in this area, but if
it's just an NGO that's sitting in an o ce and they most of their services
are regional and they're actually not doing much in Cape Elizabeth
because maybe there isn't the need, then is that better than a commercial
use that provides jobs?

So, we have we have had I've known numerous people that have looked
into putting a gym like a tness center in town, building like opening up
their own Um, and it's and this was before the Kate tness center was
here and it's just never been able to make money for them and we don't
have one. The tness center is marginally pro table at all.
As I remember probably 10 years ago there was thought of even closing
that down and they said well if you close this down there's nothing else for
anybody to use and and people still have to pay memberships. It's not like
it's free community service, but um it was something that the the private
sector wasn't going to be able to provide in Kate because they're just the
numbers aren't there.
That's why public service what the it's up to the community to decide if
the community is willing to fund. Exactly. Yes, with with that one just in
terms of adding I know you want to move on but in terms of adding we
add one bullet under the educational the educational page it just occurred
to me that we had it discussed and I don't want to open it up because I
know you want to move on but the non the schools the non-public schools
I think it I think is there where I would locate the opportunity for a potential
location for daycare facility I just hear so many young families moving in
crying about the di culty of nding adequate daycare
And I don't know how much of it's facility based versus sta ng based, but
I certainly know my neighbors have a need for daycare for their young
children. They looking because they can't nd it or they looking for cheap.
They can't nd it. It's the funny farm for 12 years. It's like a big maiden
cove is closing after about 40 years, which is crazy.
Yeah. But but the challenge with running public daycare versus a private
facility, I could never send my daughter to the public dayare because of
the hours and that they closed this summer. I had to do a private one
because they needed coverage during those hours. Yeah. No, I'm just
saying the space potentially o ers this space.

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The whole management of it public private would be able No, I'm glad you
said that. That was something we de nitely It is a location that you know
it's right in the middle of town. drop your big kids o at school and your
little one goes to I want a school that's basically a mini version of that

building that was no longer serving a school need to be converted into a
daycare that's hugely
successful and it has been for decades and they didn't put a lot into it
because the space to have it's the number one issue for a lot of our young
families I mean if you have two working spouses it's really important right
but I think that that challenge is hugely successful. I'm looking at a project
that I worked on.
It was a daycare 5,360 square feet. It ended up costing $7.57 million,
$1,400 a square foot to renovate an existing building. It opened. Everyone
probably calls it successful because you have a daycare, but they did it at
a cost that they could have bought three buildings. was a private been
functioning for 15 years.
They bought a school. That's awesome. Wasn't subsidized. It was a It was
a private school. It was a parochial school. Yeah. Purchased that was left
vacant for a year or two. purchased by a private daycare that is is now
providing probably the most single be that single location probably is
providing more daycare services than any other location in that
community.
So in that sense, I mean it's been successful in that it has been the largest
one of the largest options for the people live there. Yeah, we got to move
on on this one. Yeah, just my point with municipal is success isn't just that
you created it and it's opened. It's also that you did it in a cost-e ective
manner.
Anyone can make anything with enough money. You can build whatever
you want, but unless you can do it in a way that's cost e ective, then you
you're not being terribly responsible with your nances. So, moving on on
the agenda. Does anybody else have anything they need to add? All right.

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Um, so the next thing on the agenda was the viability rating for potential
uses. Pat, do you want to talk more about this one or It's actually just at
the bottom of your other attachment. It was just a way to if you wanted to
kind of put scores to things because sometimes it's hard to look at the
pros and cons lists and say, "Okay, how do we prioritize which one?" If
you want to put one forward as a group,

you might want to put it through a little like so cost to the town, market
viability, community, you know, what might have the most community
support, which maybe you'll know after a survey or two. Uh the feasibility,
will it really happen? uh how involved is the municipality to see and value
add to the town.
Those are all things that are going to be brainstormed or that we put along
paper after your last meeting. So it would not be hard to you guys. Yeah,
we could. Yeah, we could put it together with, you know, based on this
and kind of probably after the rst survey that might actually throw a few
more like catchphrases that you might want to have under your matrix of
ways to score and just give you ve or six
categories to at least look at the draft of the matrix before you use it just to
say let's change this to this or and you just give them all one through ve.
Yeah. And then you either individually score and aggregate or just sit here
and put it on the wall and brainstorm. I've seen what you guys did with the
tra c.
Um, work really well with prioritiz trying to help prioritize sidewalks
because we've got dozens of sidewalk requests coming in and there's
never really been a way to lter them and say, "Sorry, we understand that
your sidewalk is fth on the list and put that like and how do you actually
explain that to somebody?" So once we started adding sidewalks that get
you to a school rate higher than ones that
don't, get you to goods and services, connect to existing sidewalks, get
you to a transit stop someday, all those things factor into which ones rise
to the top. And I think you can do the same with a lot of these hybrid uses.
Yeah. So I would I would ask you Pat if you would try to put that together
um and then provide you provide us with um with that and then we can
discuss it as a group and think where where I think it would be better to for
you to kind of do that for

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us than us try to do that collectively. Yep. Are you thinking the ways are
you um Looking at page six of our meeting notes that were sent out today.
Were you thinking that the the categories would be these ve that listed at
the end, it says ways to measure viability of potential options along those
lines.

We kind of kick it around the sta a little bit to get you a draft, but it would
be something something like that. So, it's going to be each of these sort of
categories and then uh and then these across the top just give you a one
through and then you just drop down one through ve. And it's funny how
quick consensus builds and how scores start to actually kind of make
sense.
Yeah. Even though everybody values those ve categories separately or
di erently, it starts to really align pretty quick, right? It's I think it's a
starting point for where you look at things that will always depend on how
much people weight our val people's value systems are di erent. They
might value them di erently, but it's I think it gives it a really good start.
You may not want to do individual ratings and then aggregate them
because there's going to be there's always people who will just give
something a zero and it just throws, you know, a category of zero versus a
two or three and it all sudden throws o the whole. So you it might be one
of those where you just kind of collectively look at it.
That's how we had to we end up everybody saw it got to digest it but in
the end for the tra c safety one we just sort of collectively put it together
around the room. a lot of sort of do we go a two or three of that but you
start to see consensus build and and then you don't you're not you don't
see the nal score you don't see how it actually shakes out till you're done
with the exercise so uh it was
pretty the ve categories that are listed here I was just thinking about them
thinking are there others that I use and came to mind for me was possibly
um something we've talked about a lot tonight was just compatibility with
adjacent uses particularly with schools so like That might be a category
that I anybody else any categories I think this de nitely has been helpful
for kind of exploring on and I guess one of the things and I don't know
where this would fall under maybe feasibility would be that coexisting with
all used Yeah,

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I think of feasibility is like just a straight face test. Do we actually on a
scale of one to ve, do we ever picture this getting built and just you know
that kind of thing. So we'll probably add the compatibility private situations
in there. And I guess I already said it but you know this like market viability

for instance I think we all agree there's market viability for retails extremely
limited but the only reason it may be viable for some of these other uses
is because of the cost that the space would be delivered at. And then and
then it almost gets to values. of Is this something the town is willing to
provide at a cost to the town? And so, yeah, I don't know how that goes.
What's nice is the scoring kind of does that because your cost to town is
very high, right?
So it gets a low score in that category. Yeah. But you see this as a real
viable or you see community bene t and actual feasibility that might
actually get built those rates really high and then you kind of say okay in
the end it has it somehow rose to the top. Okay.
Okay. All right. Um anybody else have anything on that? Okay. the um but
actually why don't we do this because sometimes I always feel like right
when the last thing on the agenda besides the meeting schedule goes up
we all kind of forget that asset. Um, oh, I guess Pat, what with ash boat,
is there any chance that we could get like two or three or three or four of
these ash books to go up a bar next meeting?

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Three or four? No, you're way over there. No, the idea is you don't use this
tool more than it's kind of like every sign that people would like to see on a
road. If you put them all up, nobody's going to have seen any of them
because it just becomes ignored. So, Susanna and I had a great meeting
with them to share all of your key points and feedback and stu and they
actually really appreciated that that we didn't focus on telling them what
question should be asked.