press release

Handley interior work nears end

By JESSICA J. BURCHARD
December 3, 2008

The Winchester Star

Winchester — All of Handley High School will be open to students when they return from their winter break Jan. 5.

Kevin McKew, director of operational services for the Winchester Public Schools, said the final phase of Handley’s interior expansion and renovation project will be finished by Christmas.

“We’re winding down with Phase III, so within the next month, we’ll be complete,” he told the city School Board at its meeting Monday.

The board heard McKew’s presentation in the new student union at Handley, part of the first phase of work on the school.

Since the Handley project began in spring 2005, the 86-year-old original building has gained 40,000 square feet with the addition of a third floor.

The newer parts of the facility have also received technological and other upgrades.

Phase III — the final part of the interior building project — centered on renovations to the facility’s 1962 addition.

Phase III-A began in January with the renovations of 10 foreign-language and five special-education classrooms, the music department, and the kitchen and cafeteria in the 1962 addition.

This part of Phase III cost $9.1 million.

The second part of Phase III is focusing on expanding and renovating the school’s physical education areas.

Phase III-B started in July and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31 at a cost of $7 million.

Although McKew said weeks of work remain for the building’s interior, he plans to move ahead with exterior improvements to the landscape that are part of the project’s unofficial Phase IV.

This final phase is budgeted at $6.5 million and focuses on renovating the Handley Bowl athletic stadium, the football field, the stadium’s track, and other outdoor improvements.

“We expect next week we’ll be moving on to that one,” McKew said of the Handley Bowl renovations.

The outdoor portion of the project is being funded through a combination of private fundraising and historic tax credits.

Retired state Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. of Winchester is leading the campaign for private donations, and has brought in $6.2 million since the philanthropic effort began in 2006.

The school system is also expecting about $7 million in historic tax credits to be awarded in the spring.

Most of the funding for the four-phase $63.9 million project comes from $50 million in bonds issued by the City Council over four years.

Other sources include state historic tax credits and proceeds from the sale of 29 modular units used as classrooms at the school, as well as the collection of interest from the council-issued bonds.

Attending the meeting were School Board members Melvin D. Thomas, Cynthia A. Ford, Michael E. Noel, John A. Bishop, N. Randolph Bryant, Velma N. Whitmire, Jeffrey Webber, Linda Miller, and Barry W. Deuel, as well as Schools Superintendent Dennis W. Kellison.

VMDO Architects was founded in 1976 and is the youngest firm to receive the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Virginia Architecture Award, the most prestigious honor given by the Virginia Society of American Institute of Architects.

For further information, interview, and photography opportunities in reference to this project and VMDO Architects, please contact William Bishop at 434.296.5684, email at bishop@vmdo.com.