An update to the Municipal Facilities Improvement Plan (MFIP)

The City of Cambridge has invested several hundreds of millions of dollars in municipal facilities over the past thirty years. While most of that money has been spent on our public schools, significant investments have also been made in new public safety facilities, a new main library, an additional youth center, a multi-service center in Central Square and in a new water treatment plant at Fresh Pond.

Municipal Facilities Improvement Plan and Update

In 2018 the Department of Public Works completed an assessment of 43 municipal buildings across the city to better understand where additional investment would be necessary to ensure these facilities were maintained at a reasonable level of repair. These buildings included administration buildings, fire department buildings, libraries, youth centers, operations buildings at DPW, Traffic and the Electrical Department as well as other smaller buildings in the municipal portfolio.

The assessment was called the Municipal Facilities Improvement Plan (MFIP). During the past year, the Capital Building Projects Department has revisited the MFIP assessment and has begun to further refine the assessment to include the Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance (BEUDO) and space planning. The MFIP re-assessment is ongoing presently, with an expected completion date later this calendar year.

The update will provide capital planning options under various budget scenarios over the next 10 to 15 years providing more details as capital investment priorities are reviewed.

Whole Building Perspective

As the City reviews building conditions and establishes programmatic priorities, there are various layers of complexity associated with defining priorities and determining the sequence of projects. Philosophically, the City has looked at these facilities from a whole building perspective, specifically: (a) Safety: The stability and safety of the building structures and components as well as fire and life safety systems, structurally, and more broadly from a public safety perspective. (b) Building Systems: The age and condition of the mechanical and utility infrastructure that service the building

(c) Energy and Emissions: The impact of these buildings on the City’s environmental footprint, (d) Indoor Environmental Quality: Health and comfort for the buildings in terms of occupants and visitors, (e) Accessibility: The extent to which occupants and visitors of varying abilities can navigate these facilities and access those who can help them, Finally, (f) Historic Preservation: The character of buildings and their historic vintage.

Completed MFIP Projects

Since 2018, the City has completed a variety of deferred maintenance and improvement projects including: Gut rehabilitation projects Two fire houses, Lexington Avenue and

River Street

Simard Building at 147 Hampshire Street

Roof and envelope replacement and repair

Moore Youth Center

Lombardi Building

The Senior Center

The Shop (Old Firehouse at Third & Gore)

Mechanical System Upgrades

East Cambridge Fire House

Ryan Garage at DPW

Façade and other building improvements

City Hall

City Hall Annex

Taylor Square Fire House

Inman Square Fire House

Fire notification systems Finally, fire notification systems at 10 of the major buildings across the City have been replaced and upgraded to state-of- the-art systems over the last four years.

River Street Firehouse

Moore Youth Center

Financial Considerations

As indicated on December 11th, 2024, Finance Committee meeting about Public Investment, a preliminary estimate of spending associated with municipal facilities over the next five years is between $150 and $160 million dollars. The most immediate and significant portion of that will be spent on the completion of the Fire Headquarters building ($49m) project. The next largest sums are associated with a number of DPW facilities ($30m) and the renovation of 105 Windsor street ($23.5M).

The DPW facilities include the reconstruction of the salt shed at Saint Peter’s Field, the reconstruction of the DPW yard at 147 Hampshire Street, and starting facilities construction at either the Bellis Circle site or at Mooney Street, recognizing that additional investment will ultimately be needed in subsequent years to complete the necessary improvements at one or both locations to sustain DPW operations.

Additional preliminary allocations associated with compliance with the Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance (BEUDO) and general deferred maintenance projects account for approximately $35m of the remaining funding projected over the next five years.

It should be noted that the figures provided above are figures captured at a particular moment in time and are subject to change depending on the economic environment, conditions on the ground in terms of infrastructure deterioration and the future bidding climate in the region.

Deferred Maintenance

An annual allowance for Deferred Maintenance will support smaller maintenance projects as well as providing additional funding for unforeseen additional repairs in renovation projects of existing municipal buildings.

Currently, $17m is allocated over 5 years to support this work, which includes potential additional costs associated with targeted building system upgrades at the Moses Youth Center, repairs to the Geothermal system at City Hall Annex, and systems upgrades at East Cambridge Firehouse and the Healy Public Safety Building. In addition, this allocation will support smaller maintenance projects in the range of $50,000 to $500,000, such as facade repairs, HVAC component replacements, and roof repairs.

Anticipated FY26 deferred maintenance projects include HVAC repairs at O’Connell Library, HVAC improvements on the third floor of City Hall, a facility assessment at 51 Inman, repairs at the Healy Public Safety Building garage, and various upgrades to municipal offices.

Tax Supported Bond Issuance

BEUDO Implementation

The City’s BEUDO ordinance requires the elimination of on-site greenhouse gas emissions (for commercial buildings larger than 25,000 sf) by 2050. This requirement applies to approximately 26 City owned municipal buildings and schools. The City’s Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA), which accounts for emissions associated with on-site electricity use will go into operation in 2026. The VPPA is expected to drop our emissions by approximately 70% over a 2010 baseline.

This more than meets our 2030 BEUDO requirement of decreasing emissions by 40% (small BEUDO buildings) to 60% (large BEUDO buildings). By 2035, emissions associated with large buildings over 100,000 sf must be reduced to zero, and mid-sized buildings must achieve a 60% reduction, for an aggregate 86% reduction requirement. The challenge moving forward will be how to best to hit our next decarbonization targets by the elimination of emissions associated with on-site fossil fuels in these municipal buildings.