Rounded dais, added exit could be among accessibility upgrades
An extreme makeover could be coming to Upper Gwynedd’s administration building, including major changes to one of the township’s busiest rooms.
Township officials saw renderings of possible renovations to the township’s public meeting room, and behind-the-scenes fixes to their administrative offices that could be done in the near future.
“Last year, Upper Gwynedd’s administration approached us about some potential upgrades to this space, the boardroom, as well as the lobby and a couple of adjacent spaces,” said Sandra Szabo, project manager with Boyle Construction.
Last fall the township’s commissioners adopted a 2026 budget with funding earmarked for HVAC upgrades to the administration building, and Assistant Manager Megan Hurst said an internal facilities committee has continued talks about the hardware needs and safety and configuration changes that could be made to the building. Enter the consultants: Szabo and Boyle Construction senior project manager Chris Haller told the board on March 3 they studied the space in detail, with the goals of adding at least one entrance/egress, increasing accessibility, and providing a dedicated space for IT and equipment for broadcasting meetings.
“Your IT equipment is just sitting on a table right now, and there could be better storage for it. It’s just sitting there unsecured, we could do better,” Szabo said.
Other challenges with the existing public meeting room include a bottleneck at the entry doors from the administration building lobby, where curtained closets on either side leave only a narrow space for large crowds and consultants to enter or exit the meeting room, while AV equipment in the lobby is nonexistent so overflow crowds, such as those seen during talks on a controversial project on Pennbrook Parkway in summer 2023, can’t see or hear speakers in the main room.
In the current meeting room, Szabo told the board, Boyle is recommending a new configuration that changes the current straight seating for commissioners with a curved dais, so each elected official or consultant can see each other without leaning, and the curved dais could be bulletproof if the commissioners choose.
Changing the seating from straight to curved also frees up space behind for accessibility via wheelchair or walker unable to fit through the current space, and an additional exit could be added behind the right side of the seating area, facing the elected officials, and the closets between the meeting room and lobby could be converted into additional doorways to improve flow between the two areas.
“You could have doors: we showed them glazed, so you could get more light into the space,” Szabo said, showing the entrance to the main meeting room before the additional exit at the rear: “We created a vestibule, so that way if any bad actors got through there, they couldn’t get any further into the police side” of the building.
“One of the concerns was security, from this space and the lobby: you don’t want people accidentally — or intentionally — getting into the other spaces in the building, on the admin side or the police side,” Szabo said.
More monitors and upgraded speakers could be added to the meeting room for those watching presentations, and the consultant also studied whether the dais should be elevated or lowered to the same height as the public seating, which would remove a ramp running alongside.
Commissioner Denise Hull said she saw an advantage to elevating the dais: better visibility for those in the audience, who may have trouble seeing elected officials at the same height.
Commissioner Greg Moll added that he’s in favor of adding a secondary exit, since his seat is currently closest to the lone entrance and exit from the meeting space, and he’d have to move quickly should the worst occur.
“Right now, we’d be kind of trampling each other, should there be an emergency in the building. To be able to have two lines of exit, would be great,” he said.
Police Chief David Duffy added that he’s in favor of the curved seating, but had questions about the right exit and new vestibule near the police wing of the building. Haller said those exits could be controlled access and open in case of emergencies, and a staircase could be added for egress to the outdoors.
As they fielded questions, the consultants showed a series of slides depicting an aerial view of the meeting room, then concepts of what the new curved dais could look like, as seen from the audience and with the view from the dais toward the public. A pair of adjacent conference rooms currently used for smaller meetings and executive sessions could also see a revamp, with controlled access via a new corridor that could be added by reconfiguring space on the far side of those rooms.
“Right now, you can get in from the lobby and inadvertently wander into those two spaces. The layout in the conceptual design eliminates that, by moving the corridor to the other side,” she said. Across that hallway, the current township manager office and breakroom could be swapped, to give the manager a direct access to outside and allow more space to be used by the rest of administrative staff in the breakroom.
Engineer Nick Kaintz of Snyder Hoffman Associates gave a breakdown of the building’s current HVAC systems, the reliability and maintenance issues with equipment that dates as far back as 2003, and possible costs to upgrade and replace it. Systems are “unable to provide reliable and comfortable operation,” with boilers that are over 20 years old, blower coils and condensers past their useful life and using refrigerant that’s hard to replace, multiple rooms using the same thermostat, and heaters aging out of possible repairs.
“Typically, any HVAC equipment that’s located outside, you usually get about 15 years out of it. So you’ve definitely gotten good use out of this equipment, but it’s at the end of its useful life,” Kaintz said.
The engineering firm has developed two possible replacement plans, a first option being a variable refrigerant flow system that’s more efficient than current systems, but uses the current shared thermostats and ductwork: “All the stuff above the ceiling stays, and that makes this a fairly simple and straightforward replacement, makes it quick, simple and easy,” Kaintz said.
A second plan would add individual room controls, and would fully replace all current HVAC equipment, thus be more invasive, and uses more outside air, with added heat pumps and new lighting possible too; the second option would fully meet current building codes, while the first would be allowed as a system replacement but not in a new building.
“Option one is the Band-aid, let’s fix the issues right now; option number two is a more long-term, better performing option,” Kaintz said.
Cost estimates developed by the engineer put the first option at roughly $2.4 million total, with roughly $650,000 for construction, about $704,000 for maintenance and just over $1.1 million for energy costs. The second option carries a higher up front cost of roughly $1.6 million for construction including a new boiler, but cuts the maintenance to roughly $293,000 and energy costs to about $860,000, yielding a total cost of roughly $2.8 million.
Hull asked if the public meeting room would be expanded, and Szabo said the removal of closets would allow a slight increase in meeting room space, along with increased access by adding the new doors. The commissioner then asked if the board could see more specifics about the annual costs of each option and the utilities needed for each, and consultants said they would update their options with more specifics and be back at a future board meeting.
Upper Gwynedd’s commissioners next meet at 7 p.m. on April 7 at the township administration building, 1 Parkside Place. For more information visit www.UpperGwynedd.org.
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