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<P>Folks</P>
<P>I have been sending quite a few email out regarding Pete's proposal. I know Jimmy (Pete's son) keeps up with Town Talk and I probably have ruffled some feathers in the Spiropolous family. It is not my intent to prevent Pete and Sons from developing their property. I just don't agree with their current proposal. I want them to be successsful just as much as the rest of you.</P>
<P>I own several homes which are 100+ years old and I just sold one that was 60+ years old. I've personally remodeled all of them and the one I live in is still in process. When I was younger I used to do fire restoration, reconstruction, and remodeling as a profession. I guess you could say I've been involved in this sort of thing for the last 30 years one way or another (lucky me!). I'm never was a big contractor, but I do know my way around and I've done some incredibly complex and challenging restoration and reconstruction. When I was young, I would look at a job and figure it would take so much work and it would cost so much money. When I was finished, it took twice as much work and twice as much money. Once those walls came down, all kinds of problems cropped up; termite damage, soddy constructions, leaking plumbing, etc. so the related costs went way up. Many of you own older homes in our Town so I am sure this is not news to you.</P>
<P>In my mind Pete's project is a lot like the old houses I've worked on in the past. You look at the job and think it's going to take so much work and cost so much money. The contractors come in and give you the "blue sky" prices based on everything going perfectly, but hidden in the fine print is the additional cost associated with "work out of scope". My biggest concern with his proposal is the risk associated with the excavation required for parking. What would happen if there's a huge boulder down there, how about an underground stream after all this is "Riverdale", or an old oil tank just to name a few. If something like this were to happened, it could cost big bucks to correct, kill the bottom line, and hurt Pete and Sons not to mention the Town.</P>
<P>I don't know what the numbers look like on Pete's proposal and how much allowance has been made for the unexpected. From my point of view a slab foundation with no digging would be the best approach. You don't have to pay for the expense of all of that digging and it's low risk. The problem is you can't accomodate parking for ~120 units so you have to scale it back. The best you could do is two stories with surface parking. The question is does the payoff justify the risk associated with building 4/5 story structures with underground parking. Only Pete can answer that. If it were my nickel, I would do everything possible to take the more conservative approach and build a two story project. There's a lot less "got yas".</P>
<P>Bruce</P></BODY><PRE>
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