Henrico to demolish Tucker HS, rebuild it and new Highland Springs HS simultaneously

In a surprise move, Henrico County will demolish J.R. Tucker High School and then rebuild it while also building a new Highland Springs High School simultaneously – at an anticipated cost of $80 million apiece – County Manager John Vithoulkas announced today.

Both new schools should be ready for the start of the 2021-22 school year, Vithoulkas said. The new Tucker H.S. will be rebuilt on its existing site, while the new Highland Springs H.S. will be built across from the school's football stadium, on a parcels that straddle East Beal Street and front on Airport Drive. The county has an agreement to purchase the parcels – which total 15.9 acres – for $1.4 million, Henrico spokesman Steve Knockemeus told the Citizen.

The existing Highland Springs High will remain intact. Both construction projects will begin next year.

The decision to initiate not one but two rebuilds at the same time is a 180-degree shift in county policy in less than five months time – and apparently caught even members of the Henrico School Board off-guard. Board members learned of the plans just last week from general government officials, School Board Chairwoman Micky Ogburn told the Citizen.

As recently as this April, Vithoulkas squashed the notion that Henrico might be able to afford a demolition and rebuild of Tucker, telling then-Superintendent of Henrico Schools Pat Kinlaw that the idea wasn't feasible financially.

Voters approved a bond referendum in 2016 that earmarked $55 million for a renovation of Tucker, but Vithoulkas told Kinlaw in April that he didn't know where he could find an additional $25 million to pay the $80 million cost of a rebuild.

That prompted Kinlaw to nix a proposed $16,000 school system study that would have considered where to move Tucker students during such a rebuild.

The bond referendum also included $42 million for the construction of a technical center at an Eastern Henrico high school – a project the School Board had earmarked for Highland Springs and one that Ogburn told the Citizen will be incorporated into its new facility.

Today, Vithoulkas said that the county would use a combination of meals tax revenue ($26 million), the sale of new Virginia Public School Authority bonds ($32.2 million) and other funds ($4.8 million) to fill the $63 million gap in funding and pay for the two new schools.

The $1.4 million needed to purchase the new Highland Springs site is not part of that $63 million, Knockemus told the Citizen, but will come from the county's general fund. Supervisors will vote Tuesday to amend the budget and allocate that money, he said.

Ogburn attributed the suddenness of the announcement to Henrico's finance team figuring out a way to make the financial aspect "work."

Members of the School Board and Board of Supervisors, along with other county officials, had concluded earlier this year that the schools needed more than renovation, Ogburn said.

"It just became clear to everybody," she said.

Construction work at Tucker will take place in phases, Ogburn said, so that students can continue to attend class in existing portions of the building and in trailers while new portions are built. The existing school is a campus-style facility, with a series of classroom buildings accessible from the outside. The new school will be a traditional one, allowing for the recapture of some usable land at the site.

Tucker, built in 1963, never has been renovated; Highland Springs, built in 1952, was renovated in 2008.

The new schools should fill a longtime need in both regions, said Vithoulkas – himself a Tucker graduate.

“Public schools are the lifeblood of any community,” he said. “Henrico’s high quality of life depends on having schools that are great — from the quality of instruction and programming to the design and physical condition of the buildings. It’s time to bring a modern facility to the Tucker and Highland Springs communities.”

– Citizen Managing Editor Patty Kruszewski contributed to this report.