The chosen design for an addition project at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School would bring 24 more classrooms, four science labs, two art rooms and a new dance studio wrapped around the west and north sides of the already overcrowded school.
The addition project would create a four-floor structure connected by a bridge to a parking garage. New tennis courts would go on top of the ground-floor garage, on the existing site of the school’s six tennis courts and a number of portable classrooms.
A new three-floor structure would be built on the north side of the school facing the football field and the school’s existing main entrance (with the curved staircase) would be taken down and rebuilt to connect to the new structure.
B-CC is projected to surpass 2,000 students by the 2016-2017 school year. With an enrollment of more than 1,800 students, the school is already over its capacity of 1,692 — even after an addition that was completed just 13 years ago.
MCPS hopes to start the roughly 45,000-square-foot project in January 2016 and complete it in August 2017. But that would depend on new school construction funding from the state, a prospect that seems unlikely this legislative session.
Still, officials from Rockville-based architecture firm Smolen-EMR-Ilkovitch are preparing as if the first shovels will hit the ground next year. An architect on the project described the design earlier this month in a meeting with the school’s PTA group after a series of worksessions.
Without the state funding, the B-CC addition project is slated to be completed in August 2018.
The project would include 24 standard classrooms, a seminar room and workroom, plus three science labs with islands, a project room, prep room and a multi-purpose laboratory. There would be two new art rooms, three new technology education labs, nine staff offices and teacher workrooms and an 1,849-square-foot dance studio at the northwest corner of the site.
The three-story structure built facing the football field would be open on the ground-floor to provide better visibility. The facades of the new structures would be made to look as close as possible to the colonial brick designs of the school’s existing south and east wings.
Architects said the design is based on that of Annapolis Elementary School, another historically relevant older building that required more classroom space.
Construction crews would use the football field for staging purposes and more portable classrooms would be built for the school on its East-West Highway side during phase two of construction.
Via MCPS
