We only have 2 people. OK. I called this meeting of the Iron Rail Commission to order on February 25, 2025 at 6:02 p.m. This is a joint meeting with the Wyndham Select Board regarding the Iron Rail highest and best use study. The Iron Rail commission members that are present include Lou Randazzo, Natalie Kavanaugh, Erica Champa, Ted Batchelter, Andrew Waylett. Truck everyone appreciate everybody coming out. So, um, tonight we have some representatives from Dodson Flinker who are the consultants that, uh, put together this report and the public outreach, so they’re going to spend some time going over with everyone tonight, um, the presentation to kind of summarize the findings based on, uh. A number of different public outreach and financial implications, and then I’ll defer to them whether they want to take questions as they go or if they want to wait until the end. So, uh, Helena or Peter, if you wanna. Take over we can if you want to introduce yourselves and um and get started with the presentation. Thanks, Steve. I think um it might be best to wait to the end of the presentation to take questions just because we have a lot of slides to get through. Um, And I’m Helena Ferrell from Dodson and Planker, and I’ll begin. The presentation by sharing my screen. Is everyone seeing the I am real highest and best use study? Yes, yes. OK. Beginning with the goals, there are 2 primary goals. Um, of this study. The first was to really understand the characteristics of the site and um from an understanding of What exists on the site and what’s possible to develop a sense of the best uses, um, that also achieve the community’s vision and goals, and from there assessing the financial implications of the different scenarios to help guide decision making. For the town. This is um a summary of all the work we’ve conducted to accomplish. The project goal, beginning with a pretty comprehensive set of analysis, which we do for a site, which includes examining the site’s history, the existing conditions, and the constraints, both physical constraints like slopes, as well as regulatory constraints such as wetlands and floodplains. We also reviewed many of the current plans and market studies that have been conducted recently in Wenham. And this helped us to understand the community priorities and the redevelopment potential for the iron rail property. We conducted. I would describe a pretty robust, um, series of community engagement events and outreach efforts um that reached out to the community in general as well as specific community groups. We reached out to local real estate leaders and the Chamber of commerce to help understand the market conditions in one. And we collaborated closely with a number of town boards, um, the planning, um, and conservation commissions and, um, the DPW and other municipal staff, um, so it was, it was a very substantial collaborative effort, um. Including the Iron Rail commission. So the public events. We’re an opportunity, um, I’ve inventoried those on the next slide, and, um, these were public events that we held and facilitated also in collaboration with the town, and this allowed us to discuss opportunities and challenges of the iron rail property and also to hear about the possibilities that people are envisioning. Um, we then captured those community-driven ideas for development. And further um we documented them and then further looked into their feasibility. And um from there there was uh an assessor’s appraisal, um, based on the community driven ideas and other input from the first phase of the project. And um the assessor’s appraisal looked at different um types of development and the financial impact those would have, um, this was in tandem with a a financial analysis that was conducted by the town of continuing the current use versus selling the property, and then, um, Dodson and Flinker took all of that information and did another revision to development scenarios. That brought a balance between all of the information gathered through throughout the duration of the project, which began with the community outreach, the site analysis and um then concluded with the financial aspects that were necessary to understand how to balance um physical responsibility. Um, in achieving the highest and best uses. So I know that was a lot. Um, it’s been a, it’s been several years and it’s been a really big project, so, um, I’m. Doing my best to provide a, a recap here and um certainly. We have plenty of time to answer questions. At the end of this presentation. Um, this is a quick synthesis of all of the site analysis. On the left side of the screen you’ll see the list of typical maps that we make, um, for our site when we understand, when we begin to explore and try to understand the physical conditions that affect what development is possible and so the map on the right side of the screen. Is a synthesis of most of that analysis and what it shows is that there’s 3 main areas that. Could be considered for development. 12, and 3, the red star labeled not applicable at the top is um uh not really feasible for development because it’s completely encircled in flood plains and wetlands. So these were the 3 sites, 12, and 3 that we looked at for um. Initial design concepts with the community and that went into our draft report. So here are the quick takeaways of the different types of market analysis that we conducted to inform our thinking about what types of development would be possible at the site. Um, so we gathered the information on population demographics, housing, and transportation and jobs from the master plan that was being completed as we began this project. Um, we looked at local and regional market demand, um, both housing, commercial, and biotech market, as well as like a local commercial. Market demand, um. The takeaways from the housing market were that people are moving to Wenham. But homes have been increasing in price as the availability is decreasing, so there’s really a need for diverse housing types. And also that they are suitable and affordable for a range of demographics from families to seniors to individuals with special needs and empty nesters and low income residents. The commercial market takeaways were um we learned this from our outreach to um. The Chamber of Commerce that there was um it was pretty universally understood that local um demand for office space had declined greatly and it was not expected to return um to where it was before the COVID pandemic. Um, traditional retail has also declined as online shopping has increased, and then the increasing demand for real estate and small businesses was showing some positive indicators in the areas of indoor recreation, holistic health and wellness, and light manufacturing. Um, we did reference a real estate market report on, um, Biotech and biomed and lab space, real estate and that was. Um, the synthesis of that report plus some other information gathering that we did provided to take away that in the greater Boston area, there’s a, a robust amount of Lab space that already exists and a lot of it is currently vacant. So that creates a condition in this market where Firms that would be looking for that type of um accommodation have Turnkey rentals to choose from already and. When you have to factor in the what would be significant development project to develop a, a, a lab like that at the iron rail, um, it was, it would be a pretty risky endeavor. So those were our key takeaways from our market analysis to inform the thinking and designing for the iron rail property moving to the next step. Also from the master plan was this information on fiscal considerations that the town um has to keep in mind, which is that 0.03% is zoned commercial and um so there’s very little support from commercial um businesses when it comes to offsetting the um the tax base. And when maintains a balanced budget, but the expenses can outpace the revenue, and so, We have a, a lot of strain on the residential property tax rate, um, which is one of the highest in the region compared to Lenham’s neighbors of Boxxford, Hamilton, Topsfield, and Essex. We also looked at the master plan and the open space and recreation plan. These were the key goals of those plans that were relevant for looking at the iron rail property. So those were bolstering resilience, um, by increasing job diversity and tax base, preparing for, um potential commercial expansion, looking for ways to diversify the housing stock. Um, those are key master plan goals that the Iron Rail property property planning could support. Um, plus key OSRP goals which were to improve, um, the iron rail property as part of a larger system of trails and, and an open space network which is shown in this map here, the green areas being, um, conserved lands and then the red spaghetti lines being the um connected regional trails. The OSRP also identified that there’s a high demand for active recreation and that um understanding the role of the um the soccer fields um was really important because um that’s active rec recreation and there’s a need for more facilities that provide that. Of course, expanding conservation actions that protect biodiversity and ecosystem, connectivity, wildlife corridors, um, is also a really important open space goal, and the iron rail is nicely situated in between some larger open space, um, areas that are shown in the green, um, especially if that. Sort of not applicable area in the northwest corner of the site where to be conserved that would expand upon the conservation that already immediately surrounds the property. There’s a really special history to the iron rail property. It was developed as a summer vacation home for women and girls who were working in the mills in the surrounding mill cities. Lowell and um Draco and Boston and a few others were, um. Connected, um, people took streetcars to Wenham and then, um, made their way to this property to um stay for two weeks of rest and respite. At the um, the Iron Rail vacation home for for girls and between 1910 and 1953, so it’s 44 years of um operation of that project, which was led by a woman named Helen Clay Frick, who was the daughter of Henry Frick who um made a living in the industrial. Um, steel industry. And 20,000 mill girls in all enjoyed spending time at this site over the course of that period of time. They built the brick gymnasium in 1941, um, which is now known as the iron rail building. And um in. In 1974, the property was sold after a short period of time under the ownership of the Girls Club of America, um, who also used the property as a summer camp. Then the Iron Rail House was moved to Hamilton in 1976. The history of the site earned it a recommendation from the National Register of Historic Places for its significance in this progressive movement in the early 20th century. Our community outreach involved this summary of activities which started with a site visit in um mid-August in 2023, followed by a public meeting where we met with um The select board and other town boards and committees, um, and it was a community-wide open meeting where we shared all of our fact finding to date and we’re able to um hear from the community and collect a lot more information about the vision and goals that people had for the iron rail property. That was followed in October of 2023 by a design shret where we brought large format maps of the property and had different activities where people could use sticky notes and put their ideas on the map, um, or use model pieces to actually look what it, see what it would look like to put different um. Uses on different parts of of the site. Concurrently, we ran an online survey that was distributed to the Wenham community. Um, it was very, very well. It had a lot of respondents, um, 200 respondents approximately to the survey, which was hugely informative of the current needs and values that people have associated with the iron rail property. On top of that, we conducted numerous interviews with the DPW, the Iron Rail Commission, Historic Commission, Conservation Commission, Planning Board, and um the soccer. Um, organization as well as the iron rail school, uh, the gymnastics school that operates in the iron rail building. So we’re learning from all these stakeholders. Their needs and. Their vision, their challenges, the opportunities that they see, and Documenting all this information to um inform the next steps. We also continue to meet with the town of Wenham as they were working to produce an updated financial analysis and a local um appraiser, producer, an updated report. So we’ve just been doing a lot of synthesis and a lot of information to make sure that Everything would be brought to bear on the plan to move ahead with the iron rail property. We wanted to, uh, I guess revisit and reiterate some of the key findings from the community survey. Um, Regarding the iron rail gymnastics Academy, respondents said that, um, I think the big one is this 4th 1 down. Please keep iron rail gymnastics where it is. It’s a vital resource for our kids. We live with staff and gymnasts, we’d be devastated to lose it. Um, leading up to that, it’s just the sort of percentage of Which respondents Um, go to the gymnastics academy versus other areas of the site. Um, and that the 70% found it was convenient, others, um, had different priorities, low, medium, and high, um, of the gymnastics compared to other uses on the site. Um, but the key takeaway from The survey was that this was a really prized use on the iron rail property and the um feedback we got from The actual teachers, um, and proprietors of this business was that they feel confident that they, um, could afford to build a new facility um if the iron rail building itself were to change use, um, and they, they would like to build a new facility and continue to operate the academy, um, on the property if not in that same building. So similarly for the Boy Scouts, um, residents expressed that it’s incredibly beneficial and special to have this asset. Um, available to the community. Um, and again with the soccer fields, it was abundantly clear that the soccer use was um imperative. To keep We wanted to touch upon a few other ideas that came through in the community survey that people really appreciated the um that special history, the women’s history of the progressive movement brought by Helen Clay Frick and the vacation home, um, but we also continue to hear that prioritizing expansion of commercial uses would be really helpful for generating tax revenue. Um, that it’s really hard to afford to live in town. We heard that having a place for recreational opportunities was really important, um, active recreation like soccer and gymnastics, but we also heard that um people were interested in passive recreation such as nature paths and um. Some accessible trails. So we just wanted to touch upon some of the broader sentiments that came through in that survey. So from there, um, Dodson and Flinker put together a draft report. It’s referenced at the bottom of the screen, um, so it’s a substantial report and I’m just summarizing it here with this snapshot of um how we use model pieces on the site to represent the different ideas, um, which included, um, we looked at a new facility for the one in DPW, we looked at commercial retail, we looked at housing. Options, we looked at 9 different development options on the 3 different areas that are suitable for development on the site, um, and we, um, photographed them and labeled them so that we made sure we captured all the ideas that we heard from community input. And then we provided that as a draft report. To the town and then when that went to the next step, which was to be further assessed for for feasibility from there. The town conducted a financial analysis and um the first step of that financial analysis was to understand the current financial position, which is that the IML property is generating revenue, um, the net operating income is $109,000 approximately, um. And there’s a number of uses, the the gymnastics Academy and then Wag Doggy Doggy Daycare as well as a few other um small businesses. But when the town. Conducted an estimate of the um. The amount that the um cost, the cost to update the building when you factor that against the income generated. Um, that there ends up being a, a net loss in income. So to to update the iron rail building to bring it up to code, um, the positive income would then shift to a a a net loss of more than $300,000 when you factor in the financing, and that’s based on um the case study of the Hamilton Town Hall. And so that reality would necessitate. A ballot vote and. Addressing that that funding issue. I’m gonna pass it to Peter now. And stop sharing and he’s going to go over the rest of this report. Oh, you can keep you can keep sharing, um. And maybe do the slides for me. I think that probably be the easiest thing. Yeah, hi everybody. My name is Peter Flicker and I’m the president of our firm, and I just wanted to say also thank you for letting us, uh, come to you remotely tonight. I’m sorry we’re not there to see your faces in person and talk face to face, but, um. This has allowed us to put more time into the uh the presentation. Um So I do appreciate being able to do that. Can you share the uh document again? Yes. All right, thanks. Yeah, so it’s, so if you go back to that previous slide. Obviously this was a, a I think our initial charge was to figure out what are the different scenarios for redeveloping this property and that, uh, after we did the sort of initial study in the public outreach that got further complicated by thinking about well how does that really affect the uh the the the fiscal impacts of the property on the town, potential revenue, potential costs, and then all of this question of What’s really the, the highest and best use when you take into account not just the financial benefit of Keeping the property as it is or redeveloping or selling it, but then also how those different choices affect. Um, all the other uses on the site, the DPW, the soccer fields, and so on. Uh, so one of the conclusions are obviously this we’re making this presentation to give you the information you’ll need to make these decisions, but we don’t have a single recommendation for you, uh, but we look forward to sort of talking with you about that, uh, in a few minutes. So, so again, the, the cost based on the, the cost of a similar renovation of the Hamilton Town Hall, which came in at around $7 million. To bring the iron rail building up to code would probably be similar to that, uh, and then the rental income would increase logically over time a little bit, uh, but there’s just not not that much more space there and if the uses don’t change that much, you’re probably gonna have similar rental income. So then the conclusion there is that the net income after taking into account the debt. Um, service on borrowing the money to do that $7 million renovation, the net income every year is negative. I can go to the next slide, please. So the third sort of section that we looked at with the real in conjunction with the real estate appraiser was what would happen if you sold uh part or all of the property to a developer uh with restrictions on some of it and. That really looked at well, what could you get immediately um for selling different areas of the property for different uses, and then what would the likely impact be in terms of the tax tax base, so again, this does not look at all the possible alternatives, just a few of the the principal ones we basically focused on what could you do under the current zoning, which has a number of different provisions allowing both single family and multi-family development um. But you could also see this being redeveloped under as a 40B potentially, uh, or changing the zoning for different uses. So the town really has the control to determine uh what happens here, um, but in some cases it might require a change of zoning. So all of these scenarios assume that the soccer fields remain in their current use. The cemetery, of course, remains in use, and the Boy Scout barn would be unchanged, and then easements necessary to continue those uses, as well as the DPW uh, would be in place. So the next slide shows. Um, sort of the, what the appraiser did was sort of developed three different areas of the site. The one is the area around the, uh, about 10.7 acres, which includes the existing, uh, iron rail building. Uh, there’s an area of 14 acres which includes upland near to the, uh, the cemetery and access from the same road, and there’s about 12 acres that could be. Sold for um what the appraiser called low utility use, but essentially as remaining in open space. And um, Mikel, who’s who’s with us on the call, prepared some updated images showing those different uses. You could go to the next slide, Helena. This is sort of a base map of the site again to remind you of sort of how much of the site is uh wetlands are undevelopable. I mean of the 80 acres on the total site, only about 2021 acres is developable upland and of that 3 or 4 acres in the north. Upper Left hand side of this image don’t really have good road access, so we’re really talking about the area uh next to the DPW around the iron rail building, the area to the west of the cemetery, and what the appraiser looked like looked at is then what could you sell in terms of the open space that’s not needed by the soccer fields of the DPW, etc. So the next slide. shows, um, sort of what would happen if you subdivided uh the area. Uh, just around the iron rail building as a conventional single family subdivision, so this would require 40,000 square foot minimum lots, would probably require the construction of a new subdivision road and a turnaround which would be shared by the DPW and it would result in probably two lots. Uh, real estate appraisers said that this could be those lots could be sold for $1.1 million. The next slide. Shows an alternative under the town’s flexible development uh bylaw, uh, this allows. 2,020,000 square foot minimum lots with preservation of open space and the sort of two versions that you see here, both of them have 23 development lots and provision for in the darker green area the protected open space that would go along with those lots and enable the. The formula to work on the one on the right includes maintaining the existing iron rail building as well as the Boy Scout barn, uh, which is to the right of that, uh, but these would have to be used for a use that’s accessory to the open space use. So presumably it could continue in a, uh, um, in some town function, um, like Boy Scouts, you could argue was accessory to an open space use, but similar use would have to be found for the, the iron rail building. The next slide shows. Another version of the flexible development under the town’s multi-family bylaw which allows up to 4 dwelling units per structures, and in this one showing a variety of structures within the loop, the existing loop, uh, surrounding the iron rail building and converting the iron rail building itself into multi-family housing. Uh, the next one looks at. Probably the most um. The scenario that’s probably the the most likely if you were going to sell the site, which is to build senior housing under the senior housing overlay district, um, this would require 7.5 acres of the site to be preserved as open space. It could be done just within the existing iron rail building, which I think could have what, 12 to 16 units within it, or you could add as shown on the right, uh. A number of additional structures, these each have 4 units in them for a total of 28 units in the new structures. And then there would have to be the associated parking, but all this would fit within the existing, um, iron rail loop road. Essentially, the DPW would remain where it is, um, and it would wouldn’t have to go into the surrounding, uh, open space or particularly the wetland buffers any further than it does right now. And this the real estate appraiser, uh, said could be sold. For this use for $5.6 million. So it’s the highest value that the appraiser was able to identify for selling some part of the property. Uh, the next slide. shows some of the ideas that we presented at earlier meetings sort of talking about what would this be like and how would it work. Um, there’s a lot of, you know, probably 100 towns around Massachusetts that have converted old schools. These are a number of. Um, examples in Northampton where schools and other former, um, institutional buildings have been converted to apartments, uh, can work very well, uh, particularly because most of these were very solidly built, uh, you have to do a very thorough. Renovation, but you have a high value if they’re in a good location. So typically where you see these, uh, being most successful, it’s where you have a high value downtown location within walking distance of transit and other uses, and then these can command sort of top prices in terms of the rental market. The next slide shows. Some options for the sort of the new multi-family housing, um, I think people generally responded well to this kind of approach, which is traditional detailing, uh, traditional sort of scale building, so not a giant apartment building, but, um, sort of apartments that are stacked up above each other as shown in the Sea Captain’s Row and Hyannis to the left or townhouse style. As shown on the right where the units are lined up next to each other, but the connecting those units together with a larger structure and then limiting the total units to like 4 or 8 units for a structure allows you to get something that feels like a traditional building, even though it’s not necessarily a traditional use for a town like Wham. Next slide. Shows another part of the uh equation which we looked at which the appraiser evaluated, which is some kind of commercial development in this case focusing on an indoor recreation facility that could be built in the space uh to the west of the. The cemetery is an indoor recreation facility of 45,000 square feet, could include the gymnastics, uh, indoor indoor soccer facility, or the gymnastics could be created as a separate facility. The real estate appraiser said this area could be sold for this use for $1.78 million. Next slide. So this is uh somewhat smaller indoor soccer facility and then a separate gymnastic facility which with its parking would take, uh, that smaller soccer field near the entrance to the the cemetery road, and this has a similar real estate appraisal, um, uh, but it shows some of the options within the, within these options there are lots of options, right? You could have, um. Several, um, a single larger uses or several somewhat dis dispersed uses, um, but all within sort of similar sort of financial. Um, opportunities, so about $1.8 million in value in terms of the, the sales that would be generated for the town. Next slide. So this is um. I think where we’re ending up, right, right, Helena, which is a summary table, and I’m not sure you can see this very well, but it’ll be uh printed in the report, which you’ll be able to peruse in detail, but it basically compares not just the immediate. Uh, sales value of selling those parcels for development, but also the impact on the tax rate and or the rental income and then in the green is really the, the bottom line which is the recurring net annual tax and or rent revenue. Uh, so the scenarios are listed on the far left. So if the town retains ownership and the existing uses continue without any improvements to the building, you would continue to make some $172,000 a year, but with the costs of 62,000 for utilities and minor improvements that are needed. You can expect to continue to make about $110,500 a year in net revenue, um, if the town invests in upgrading the building, which probably will have to happen at some point, uh, that’s going to require a 60 or $700 million or $7 million bond, um, with which the cost of covering the, that, uh, loan would. Boost the annual cost up to about $50 million over time and then. Again, unless there’s some magical change in uses the use. Rental income, it’s probably not going to increase enough to offset the cost of covering that, that loan. So here it’s shown as an annual um net revenue or loss of $331,000. Um, and then, uh, if you have, we can sort of start to take questions shortly and and look at this in more detail if you want to, but essentially each of the for sale, um, Scenarios generates 2 to 3. million dollars in immediate benefit to the town from the sales. The highest one is the $7.6 million which is the senior housing scenario, and then each of those has um a net annual tax revenue of 40,000 up to $150,000. So these again, um, they’re all realistic scenarios physically, and they’re probably realistic scenarios in the marketplace and um The, the, the sort of the next step is to figure out what’s the best balance uh between the, uh, the fiscal benefits to the town, the long-term tax benefits, and then the potential impacts on existing and future uses on the site. So with that, uh, Helena, do you want to give the sort of summary? Sure, so. Um, that’s the broad overview of what has been a pretty, um, complicated and robust project, and, um, we wanted to make sure that no stone was left unturned and that the town has everything it needs to have in order to weigh out, um, the best way forward. So in conclusion, um, we’re not providing a definitive recommendation, however, um, we’ve given Uh, a good, uh, variety of several scenarios that, um, aim to balance finances, long-term benefits, and, um, the community’s values. So that’s it. And um Yeah, we’d be happy to take. Questions Yeah, thank you. That was great. I just want to stress that when we’re looking at the, the alternative uses, um. You know what we, what we tried to do is through the public forums that were discussed earlier is, you know, it seemed to be that the community was very supportive of two things, you know, both through the master plan and also through the community forums, uh, was additional housing. Uh, generally something in denser housing that would, you know, likely be more affordable than the larger single family homes. In addition, was strong support to the current recreation or use we did hear from a number of people that, you know, they, they, um, they really valued the soccer fields, they valued the walking trails, they valued the gymnastics, uh, and they wanted to keep with the theme of, you know, recreational use over. Um, you know, other commercial uses being, you know, potentially, and that’s why we kind of came up with the indoor, uh, facilities, whether it be soccer, gymnastics, what have you, multi-use space. Um, you know, we did explore other sorts of commercial use such as retail and office space, some more viable than others, but, you know, we wanted to put forward something that, you know, at least the community was supportive of, and it seemed to be, um, the recreational use of the, uh, site as a whole. And I just wanted to uh add that piece and, uh, you know, open it up for questions. Steve Um The option with the 20 up to 28 units. Did you ever check to see whether we have enough sewer and water to do that? Um No, I don’t. Right. Because that could be a problem. I think. Yeah, it could be. Uh, Ted Batchelor from the Iron Rail Commission, uh, as far as, uh, section 3 in the cemetery up there was it explored that the, uh. Cemetery has any rights or privileges for future expansion in that area? It’s something I don’t know, yes or no. Um, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that. That was really well done. Really well done and um. Really good job by Peter and Helena. Um, Interesting to look at the address. Are you, are you guys gonna come back with a recommendation? I think as far as the cemetery goes, I just. It’s So, uh, Gary achievement select board, but formerly Cemetery commission. So the history I know is that uh. Excuse me, I, I hate to interrupt. We, we can’t hear anything unless you speak right into the microphone. So, uh, Gary Cheeseman, uh, select forward and formerly a cemetery commission. Uh, what I know on the Iron Rail Cemetery is that, um. The property line I’ve not seen any actual Map deeded separation within the overall thing uh we know that there is a long history when they are developing the cemetery as to how to access it so that I would imagine any development or rearrangement, especially of that zone two area would have to provide for a uh. Extension of the cemetery road right away out to Rubby Road and perhaps. Have a separate parking lot for the other uses. But um The current area out in section 2, I would ask too as to uh did you take a look at uh the terrain there, does that present any particular issues to uh development? It’s certainly not the, the easiest site to develop or permit. Um, it’s a rolling terrain with heavily forested surrounded by wetlands. Uh, we did. Identify that the wetlands boundaries based on the state mapping. Uh, we looked at the flood plains and we determined that there’s enough upland area to build that facility and associated parking of, you know, 45,000 square feet or or or so, um. We didn’t do any on site um. Soil testing or or deep hole testing, but that area has been graded and regraded by DPW and previous owners, um, as far as we can tell, it appears to be, uh, sandy and gravelly. And probably could, you know, once you clear the vegetation, you could probably regrade it relatively easily, uh, but all of that would be subject to additional sort of field study. I think other other than an open field. Uh, it’s probably not, no more difficult to develop than a lot of other sites in Wenham. You see Um, just, just so you know, we’re, we can’t hear any of, any other conversation. So Steve, if you wanna go to the microphone and relate to any questions or discussion to us, um, that’s the only way we can respond. Yeah we have one more question coming up here. Hi, I’m Rich Healy, I am Rel Ja now thanks. um, so of all the scenarios that you went through, the estimated tax revenue on the most densely populated, um, housing development, the estimated tax revenue was $140,000 a year around there. Something like that I’m just looking at the uh the table again. Yeah, the net revenue is 147,000. OK, $147,000 and the current revenue that the town makes from the building is roughly 110,000. That is correct. OK. All right, so we could all stay for pretty close to that amount. OK. All right. I, no, I get, I get this. I get there’s a lot of, um, there’s a lot of other, you know. Issues with, with you guys with affordable housing and things like that, um, so. I think the point of that is. You know, something we have to be concerned about is looking forward is it’s really not. You know, for another 5 or 10 years, can it continue as is probably, but the town will at some point be faced with rehabbing the building and those costs are. You know, like, like they, they specified here are, are in the 6 to $8 million dollar range because it would require putting in and out once we touch the building. Um, in an amount that exceeds $500,000 which is very easy to do, spending $2 million on an HVAC system for this building. You’re sitting in right now, uh, you have to bring the entire structure up into ADA compliance so that means adding an elevator, that means opening up the bathrooms, making all floors, uh, open and accessible. So with that would require the town to borrow just like a mortgage would have to borrow money to pay for the project. And the rent. You know, the, the, the debt service on that borrowing would be about $500,000 a year. So even if the rent went up. Say the rent doubled would still be in a deficit by about $250,000 a year. So like that’s kind of the challenge that we’re faced with, right? You know it’s not an immediate need as in tomorrow, but it’s certainly a building that has failing infrastructure, the original steam heat still has the you know the screw in fuses for the electrical service. Uh, a lot of original stuff and functional obsolescences that are built into the old building, built into the original structure, so that’s just really things we’re looking at, uh, moving forward. Allow comments at home if anybody has, um, that’s remote, wants to make a comment or ask a question. For once I was just gonna ask you what next step. Yeah, I think next step is, uh, Dodson is working on finalizing the final pieces of the report so you know that will be publicly available be distributed to all board and committee members and be publicly available on our website and then I think from there, you know, the really the big question is. To the uh iron rail Committee and the select board. You know, where do we go from here? Do we? You know, we’d be looking, we have a bunch of alternatives, you know, one of the alternatives is to just leave it the same so you know, from a staff perspective would just be looking for some feedback from the boards on maybe areas they wish to explore more, um, you know, maybe a combination of some of the examples right where, you know, as we kind of got into this, we found that there’s really an infinite amount of variables. It’s like what like this piece of that idea and this piece of that idea. You know, can we put it all together so it would be probably, you know, more studies, more public outreach, uh, and just trying to figure out what needs to be done and then once we identify what if anything should and um be done then you know what needs to take place, uh, to achieve it is there any zoning changes so that would require a town meeting, um, you know what. You know, to kind of put a plan in place to move that forward in any, in any event, even if there was a decide to change the use. It’s a multi-year process. It’s not gonna, and once you arrive on where you want to go, I would like to see it go. It’s not like you flip a switch and we start working on it the next day. It’ll probably be one or two town meeting cycles to get through all the regulatory changes we need to make and um. Make, you know, start to make the changes from there. Alright thanks to uh Peter and. Yeah, thank you Peter Helena Maca appreciate it and um. Yeah, so we’re all set and we’ll, we’ll be in touch with you tomorrow. But I appreciate you coming out. It was great. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. And make a motion to adjourn this meeting of the iron rail commission. Is anyone second? All in favor, yes. All 5 vote yes, so we are adjourned. Every