Fairfax County school board explores office building as school site
The Fairfax County School Board is examining the viability of acquiring a five-story office building at 6245 Leesburg Pike in Seven Corners and converting to a school to provide relief for the severely overcrowded Bailey’s Elementary School.
According to a Sept. 5 news release from Fairfax County Public Schools, Bailey’s is at 130 percent capacity with more than 1,300 students and has 19 trailers. Parents have long been urging the school system to address the problem.
The five-story office building, which has been vacant for a year, is a foreclosed property owned by a Maryland limited liability company listed on county tax records as 6245 Leesburg Pike I LLC. FCPS has been negotiating in good faith over the past two months, the news release states, but since the owners have been unresponsive, the school board has approved the use of a statutory authority to gain access to the vacant building to determine whether it could be converted for use as a vertical-design school.
A thorough internal inspection of the building is necessary to determine whether this building would allow for the design of a fully functioning elementary school. The property is valued at $7.35 million.
The building used to house Fairfax County health and social services offices before they were relocated to the Heritage complex on Little River Turnpike, Annandale, in the summer of 2012.
10 responses to “Fairfax County school board explores office building as school site”
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Are you kidding me? There is a former school site on Route 50 across from Home Depot (currently being used as a multicultural center) which has a playing field, parking lot and a pedestrian bridge over route 50 into it. Is that even being considered? Or maybe the county could stop building artificial turf fields and start expanding school buildings instead??
http://www.wtop.com/149/3403027/Fairfax-to-convert-more-sports-fields-to-synthetic-turf
We can do better for the kids.
And a lot of kids live right there in those apartments. They wouldn't even have to cross Rt 50
This is a great idea!
Baileys is a two magnet school. It accepts many students who live outside of its boundary to go there. If you removed the magnet programs with its out of boundary students, the school would not have this overcrowding issue. Hence, saving much money.
The magnets at Baileys are the only thing keeping the school from being 100 percent poverty. They need to be kept in place and the school split up into two.
Talk about traffic tie ups, how will they get buses in and out of the lot from off the service road. There would also be a major issue with walking to school since the kids would have to cross over a busy street where as many as 3 cars run red lights on route 7 every morning as I sit there to wait for my light on the service road. (I’m wondering if they would still be required to bus kids from across the street?) Also, half the people make a right turn on red when the sign says not to do it. I don’t know if the facility is handicapped accessible either. There will be lots of issues to work out if they do put a school in that location so hopefully they will be resolved prior to any decision.
Thank you Penny Gross. The one person who put a stop to building onto the library. I guess the little old ladies in Lake Barcroft lobbied her good.
AKA one cent because thats all thats there…a legacy of .01 value to the community.
My question is why does the government have the right to enter your building under statutory authority just because they are not responsive to you. The owners have no obligation to sell the building to FCPS.
The Bailey's elementary population comes from the building that is in culmore area…no route 50….