Letter: Community Input Sought on New Facility

448

 To the editor and the Ipswich community: 

The public safety building committee (PSBC) — together with the project architect Ted Galante and the owner’s project manager — is working towards the goal of beginning construction of the community’s new facility at the Linebrook Road site in 2026.

The legal challenges are gone, but, over the more than 18 months of waiting for resolution of the legal challenge, changes to the state building code require us to update various details of the construction documents.  

The committee feels this is a good moment to invite the community to talk with us about the building’s exterior design details at a series of public meetings over the next four weeks. We have hired Ned Collier as a consultant architect to help facilitate this conversation, working as a liaison between architect, committee, and community in the course of these meetings. 

We currently have four meetings planned at town hall. We are working to have these filmed by ICAM.

The intention of our committee, and our design team, is to listen to the community’s thoughts about design. The meetings are intended to be thought of in sequence, as a progression of a constructive, creative conversation. Ted Galante will join each meeting. 

On the evening of Thursday, October 16, at 6 p.m. in town hall’s room C, we will start to discuss opportunities and constraints related to the building’s exterior. We will talk about our town’s notable building styles, for reference and as context. We will listen to the community, and we will end the meeting with a summation of thoughts. 

On the morning of Saturday, October 25, in room A, we will continue the conversation begun on the 16th. This meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. 

On the evening of Monday, October 27, in room A, we will continue the conversation with the community, exploring ideas for exterior design alternatives for the new building. Again, we will end the evening with a summation of the discussion. This meeting will begin at 6 p.m. 

On Monday, November 10, in the resource room, we will look at sketches by our architect, showing ideas and possible changes to the building’s exterior — ideas which reflect what has been heard and discussed at the previous two meetings. And, again, there will be a summation of progress, plus a description of the next steps towards a fully designed building ready to be built. This is a 6 p.m. meeting. 

We are considering one more of these conversational meetings to be done via Zoom. Look for links in the meeting postings on the town website’s calendar, particularly for the dates of October 25 and 27. 

Robert Weatherall  
PSBC Chair 

Related