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We’re close to seeing the first drawings of what the renovated Prince Edward Elementary would look like. In the meantime, school officials and Moseley staff continue to work on the elementary renovation, with a tentative schedule starting to take shape. 

First off, when it comes to design, that part of the project is expected to be finished now by mid-April. Once that’s done, Moseley will start on the construction documents. To be clear, when we refer to Moseley, we’re talking about Moseley Architects, the group hired to develop the plans for Prince Edward Elementary’s $43.3 million renovation. So if design wraps up by April, that means it’ll then go for county approval and currently would be able to advertise and go out for bid in July, with the goal of receiving bids and awarding the contract by late August. Then the contractor would be mobilized on site by early September.  

“[The] phasing and overall construction schedule is still being developed,” school district officials said in a statement. They added the overall construction is still supposed to take between 28 to 32 months. 

Moseley staff will be coming back to Prince Edward next month, answering questions from the school board during their monthly meeting. That’s when the board, and those in attendance, will be able to see a rough draft of the design. The idea would then be to have construction running for 28 to 32 months. 

What’s happened so far? 

We’ve mentioned design, but some other work is also taking place on the renovation project. When all the construction happens, students have to go somewhere. That would be in mobile classrooms, set up on the property’s blacktop. Prince Edward staff had some specific requests, so the Moseley group is also helping them find classrooms. 

The plan calls for 15 temporary classrooms this fall, with four additional module units used as student toilets and one final module as a teacher workspace. A bid package for the temporary classroom work, including utility connections, etc. should be ready to go out around March 21, school district officials say. A layout for how the temporary classrooms will fit has already been put together. 

As for the school itself, Moseley staff have spent the last month doing building surveying, field measuring and documenting existing conditions in all buildings on campus. They also wrapped up the last of their user meetings with school faculty and staff. 

The project itself involves demolishing the two oldest buildings at the elementary school. In their place will be new construction connecting the remaining buildings, making it much easier to travel between classrooms. It also involves more seating options, bigger classrooms in some cases and more options for hands-on learning. The front entrance would also be relocated, getting traffic off Eagle Drive and fixing the general traffic situation during drop-off and pick-up times.

Elementary renovation funding 

And then there’s the biggest question, the $43.3 million one to be exact. How will this elementary renovation be funded? Prince Edward got some help from the state in that department late last month, as the Assembly signed off on SB14, which included the county’s request. 

The request is to raise Prince Edward’s sales tax by 1%, which would then be used to help pay on the yearly debt service for the school renovation. In Virginia, a city or county has to first get permission from the General Assembly, then citizens have to vote on the concept before it can happen. Previous Prince Edward County Administrator Wade Bartlett floated the idea in 2019. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, supervisors pushed to get a bill filed and approved in the Assembly, but each time it died. This year, supervisors hired a lobbying firm to help push the bill forward. 

But now this part is now in a holding pattern of sorts. The original request was merged at the last minute with a bill that gives every county in Virginia the ability to raise sales tax, which led to some pushback, but eventually it passed the House and Senate. Now it’s before the governor, waiting for his signature. He has until midnight on April 9 to sign the bill. 

If he does, then it goes before Prince Edward voters in a referendum this November, asking if they support the sales tax increase. If not, or if voters turn it down, that opens another issue. 

What if sales tax is rejected? 

Based on the current real estate tax base, if the sales tax increase isn’t approved, supervisors would have to raise real estate tax by 20-25% to cover the $2.3 million debt service created by the elementary renovation. 

“For a locality with a poverty rate of 23.6% that ranks among the highest in the state, with 35% of the taxable real estate exempt from taxation, and about 20% of our total population college students, that is a big ask,” Stanley said in an earlier interview with The Herald. “Such an increase would eliminate any opportunity to fully fund the multitude of much needed capital projects on our CIP and/or future improvements to our middle and high school in the foreseeable future.” 

And Prince Edward isn’t the only county in this situation. The Virginia Commission on School Construction and Modernization found that a number of school districts reported crumbling buildings. In fact, more than half of the K-12 school buildings in Virginia are currently more than 50 years old. The commission found that the amount of funding needed to fully replace all of the crumbling school buildings in Virginia is estimated to be $24.8 billion.