Demolition of Lacey Center to start in about a month

Residents of the Broyhill Crest neighborhood should expect to hear a lot of noise next month, as demolition work begins on the Lacey Center. [Click on the site plan illustration to make it larger.]

At a neighborhood meeting July 28, Mark Hilty, coordinator of capital projects for Fairfax County Public Schools, and Mason District School Board member Sandy Evans gave an update on plans for constructing a new elementary school on the site, located at 3705 Crest Drive in Annandale. The building was originally Masonville Elementary school, which was closed in the 1970s due to declining enrollment and convered to a school administrative center. The school-age population in Annandale is rising, and just about all the schools in the area are overcrowded. 

According to Hilty, the now-vacant Lacey Center will be demolished in about three to five weeks. The fire and police departments have used the building for training sessions over the past couple of weeks; the training is scheduled to continue through Aug. 1.

On July 22, the Fairfax County School Board approved a construction bid for the project from the CFI Construction Corp. for $13.749 million. That was the lowest among 15 bids received, and Virginia law requires the lowest bid be accepted. CFI, based in Rockville, Md., has done several projects for FCPS. Funding for the project comes from a school bond passed by voters in 2007.

The construction is scheduled to be completed by April 2012, and the new school will open in September 2012. After the demolition, it will take about two weeks to haul all the building materials out. After that, work will begin on erosion control, and a fence will be erected around the entire site. As part of the work on the new school, Hilty says, the storm sewer on the property will be redone. The new school will be the first in the county with geothermal heating. That will require drilling about 95 wells on the property—on what will be the athletic field.

The construction work will take place daily, 7 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m. If people in the neighborhood complain about the noise, Broyhill Crest resident Joan Ebbs advised them to concentrate on the “value of having a brand-new school in our neighborhood.”

The part of Crest Drive between Wayne Drive and the new school will be widened to accommodate school buses. Several people at the meeting expressed concern about the difficulty of school buses navigating along Wayne Drive, which is narrow, and suggested the county consider restricting parking when the school opens.

Some residents of Brookcrest Place, directly behind the Lacey site, had long been concerned about runoff following heavy rains. Hilty said regrading to be done on the property “will correct a lot, but not all” of the runoff. The sidewalk leading from the back of the school to Brookcrest is owned by the county. It will be blocked off during construction and will reopen when the project is complete.

Fran Tunick, an aide to Mason Supervisor Penny Gross said it might be possible for the .67-acre Masonville Park adjacent to the property to be transferred from the Park Authority to the Fairfax County Public Schools. Since the mostly wooded park is so small and isn’t well-maintained, it makes sense to attach it to the school property, she says.

Having the school finished months before the start of the school year allows us to have a “test run summer,” to make sure everything was done right and the heating and air conditioning systems are working correctly, Hilty notes. It also gives FCPS more time for staffing.

The new school will have 38 general education classrooms, two art rooms, three music rooms, and two School Aged Child Care rooms. It also will have 104 parking spaces.

Evans says the new school will have a capacity of 700 students. The actual enrollment will depend on the grade configuration and the number and type of special programs. Those decisions haven’t been made yet. A new school board advisory group will consider boundary options for the new school and recommend whether it should be K-5 or K-6.

Another group is exploring solutions to alleviate overcrowding at Annandale High School. Annandale is about 600 students over capacity and is the most overcrowded school in the county, Evans says. At least one reason has to do with the poor real estate market; fewer people are moving out of the area. It’s also possible more students are transferring from private to public schools, but there is no data on that.

Area PTAs have appointed representatives to serve on both groups, which together are known as the Annandale Regional Planning Study Committee. The committee’s next meeting is Aug. 18, 7 p.m., at Annandale High School. It is open to the public.

At the committee’s first meeting, July 20, some people expressed concern about the difficulty of sorting out and agreeing on new school boundaries affecting a large number of schools—21 elementary, middle, and high schools—by the end of the year. Others also suggested that representatives from even more schools that might be affected by boundary changes be added to the committee.