Charlottesville City Council favors Early Learning Center option that would build new gym

The finishing touches are underway on the renovated and expanded Charlottesville Middle School which will welcome sixth graders when the academic year begins on August 12. The project cost just over $92 million and now attention turns to the details of conversion of Walker Upper Elementary School into an early learning center.

As with their work at Charlottesville Middle School, the firm VMDO has been hired to come up with different ideas. The Charlottesville School Board took a look on June 4 and City Council was presented with three options at their meeting on June 10.

First, the deputy director of the Public Works Department explained the existing conditions at the site.

“Building A, which is kind of the main school building, Building B, which is the auditorium building, and building C, which is the gymnasium,” said Mike Goddard. “And then Crow, there is the Crow pool, which we’ve talked about decommissioning several times over the years, but is still functioning at the present.”

To the north, there is the administration building for Charlottesville City Schools.

Resources:

• June 4, 2026 capital report to Charlottesville School Board
• June 10, 2026 presentation to Charlottesville City Council

All of the schemes would incorporate Building A in some manner and all of them anticipate a need for “swing space” for elementary schools.

What is now referred to as Scheme A has a project cost estimate of $42.5 million. Building A would be kept for a future use and Building B would be renovated to be part of the Early Learning Center. The gymnasium would be demolished and would not be rebuilt.

Scheme B has a project cost estimate of $60.8 million and would feature a new building for the Early Learning Center to be constructed on what is now a driveway and a lot with 39 parking spaces. Buildings B and C would be left alone and Building A would be the swing space. Gentry Lane would be closed to through traffic. This version takes a terraced approach that would fill in the slope between the Rose Hill Drive entrance and Gentry Lane with a three story building.

“Our terrace design really builds into a pretty steep hill,” Goddard said. “So we’re doing a lot of retaining work there. It’s not the cheapest way to build a building. The terrace approach also gives us some nice access to outdoor space from all the classrooms. But that outdoor space is kind of on rooftops, which is a really intriguing architectural design.”

Scheme C has a project cost estimate of $51.4 million and a new Early Learning Center would be built where the gymnasium currently stands. Buildings A and B would be left as is and a new middle-school sized gym would be constructed.

Goddard said Scheme A had been developed before the brief time when the City of Charlottesville thought it might acquire the Federal Executive Institute from the federal government.

“We started putting together plans for what we might do with that site if we got it and though it was ultimately unsuccessful, a lot of things were brought to light through that process,” Goddard said. “Needs that the schools had that we hadn’t really been aware of, or things that had changed a little bit in the years since we’d started this design process.”

Goddard said demolishing all of the buildings would have taken away flexibility for the school system to have temporary space that could be used when elementary schools are renovated in the future. And elementary school students need a gymnasium.

The capital improvement program adopted by City Council in April allocates $10 million to the project and $20 million in FY2028. That does not factor in the potential of the proceeds from a one-percent sales tax that Charlottesville could levy for education if voters approve the idea in a referendum. That power still has to be granted by the General Assembly.

Council favored Scheme C.

“It sounds like it’s a bit of a compromise and there’s some difficulties with B that aren’t present with C and sounds like it’s at the moment a reasonable idea,” said City Councilor Lloyd Snook.

Charlottesville Mayor Juandiego Wade was not present at the meeting.

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