Arlington County is moving forward with plans to overhaul Yorktown High School in a $92 million, four-and-a-half-year construction project that will modernize and redesign the aging building while classes are in session.
The county has asked construction companies to present their qualifications and expects to ask for bids in April and begin the work in June, officials said.
Yorktown High, which accommodates about 1,600 students, was constructed in 1949 as an elementary school and has seen several additions since then.
In 2004 Arlington added a new 30-classroom building adjacent to themain school as the first phase of the redesign.
In the next and final phase, the main building will be torn down and built taller, with a three-story courtyard in the center that will be accessible from all levels, according to design plans.
“At this point it’s quite a sprawling building – people have trouble finding the front door, and it’s hard to know where you are,” Arlington Public Schools project manager Vaughan Olbrys said. “The new building will have a smaller footprint so there’s more open space and a more prominent front door, and the interior circulation will be much easier.”
The main building also will house a renovated auditorium, a black-box theater and an expanded pool, which sits in a separate building on school grounds. The work will be done in phases to allow regular school sessions to continue, Olbrys said.
“Of course, everybody is worried about noise – the citizens, the staff, the students. Arlington has a noise ordinance that we’ll comply with and we’ll do what we can to minimize the noise, but it’s going to make noise.”
The project also will increase the number of surface lot parking spaces at the school from 228 to 347, a number that falls short of community requests for at least 400 spaces and a parking garage.
“Not only is there a shortage of daytime school parking, but after the renovation there also will be a significant expansion of event capacity for larger school and community-related events,” Yorktown Civic Association president David Haring said.
County officials said they did not want to encourage driving and that parking spots take up valuable green space. They did not rule out the addition of a parking garage if funds became available.
