A plan to renovate and expand Herndon Elementary School got an enthusiastic vote of confidence from the town’s Architectural Review Board (ARB) last month.
At its meeting on Nov. 20, the Town of Herndon ARB unanimously approved Fairfax County Public Schools’ site design application for the project, which will update the existing building at 630 Dranesville Road and add another 25,000 square feet of space to better accommodate the growing student body.
“We’re all very excited about this one, I must say,” ARB Chair Leslie Blaker-Glass said when inviting town staff to give a presentation.
Originally constructed in 1961, Herndon Elementary School got multiple additions in the following decades through the 1990s, but since then, enrollment has exceeded the building capacity, leading to the introduction of temporary trailers, Herndon Deputy Director of Community Development Bryce Perry told the board.
The planned capital project, which has been in FCPS’ renovation queue since 2009, will expand the school to 129,200 square feet with a two-story addition to include expanded cafeteria and administrative space, a new library, more classrooms and new art and music facilities.
The building is designed to support a projected future capacity of 1,050 students, allowing the trailers to be removed after construction, according to the FCPS project page.
Outdoor amenities will include softball and soccer fields, a playground and play areas for kindergarten and preschool students, an outdoor classroom and internal courtyards, per a site plan that, as of the ARB meeting, remained under town staff review.
Separate lots will still be provided for individual drivers and for school buses, but the kiss-and-ride lot on the south side of the property is being extended, increasing the amount of available parking will increase from 97 to 168 spaces.
The ARB received “a good number of letters” and comments from residents stressing the need for sufficient landscaping to create a buffer between their homes and the expanded parking lot, Blaker-Glass noted.
A resident who said he has lived on Fillmore Street next to the school since 1976 expressed overall support for the renovation but objected to the added parking, which he worries will exacerbate drainage issues on his property, among other concerns.
“If I were the deciding official, I would not add in the additional parking expansion, which, for example, conflicts with Fairfax County’s carbon reduction policies, its environmental vision and the county policy for sustainable transportation,” he said.
He also called plans to remove trees from a nearby property as part of the project “unnecessary and not fully explained.”
The renovation and expansion should improve stormwater management, which is currently nonexistent on the school site, according to Maureen Weichert, a principal with the FCPS-hired architectural firm Cooper Carry.
“Currently, there is little to no drainage on the site right now, so the entire site has been brought up to code,” Wiechert told the ARB. “It’s gone through all of the review processes with the Town of Herndon and then approved, so we have a brand-new storm system and sewer system provided on the site.”
According to the architect, the kiss-and-ride lot had to be extended to the east to make room for the expanded administrative offices, which were required to be located at the front entrance of the school building.
“The design team added more landscaping to address [the resident’s] concerns,” she said. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t move any of the parking, so that was sort of the tradeoff.”
Having secured the ARB’s support, FCPS still needs to get its site plan approved and building permits. Herndon staff completed their review of the site plan in April, but the town is waiting for FCPS to submit and record easement documents required before the application can get final approval, according to the town’s senior engineer.
Construction is currently expected to begin in spring 2025 and finish in summer 2027.
