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With student cheerleaders from – and adult “cheerleaders” for – both schools looking on, Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas Sept. 20 stepped to a podium at Victor W. Kreiter Stadium at Highland Springs High School and announced that Henrico County officials would construct new versions of that school and J.R. Tucker High simultaneously, beginning next fall, at an anticipated cost of $160 million. Both schools are expected to open in time for the 2021-22 school year, Vithoulkas said.
It was a stunning reversal of course – and a seemingly unprompted doubling down on that reversal – that few could have predicted just five months ago.
In April, as county officials were finalizing their budget plans for Fiscal Year 2019, the concept of rebuilding even Tucker alone seemed a pipe dream. Vithoulkas, himself a Tucker graduate, told then-Henrico Schools Superintendent Pat Kinlaw that he didn’t know where he could find the necessary funds to turn a planned $55-million renovation of the school into an $80-million rebuild.
In response, Kinlaw cancelled plans for a study that would have examined where Tucker students might move during a rebuild. School system officials continued with plans to begin the renovation – the school’s first, funded by voters in a 2016 bond referendum – next fall.
There had been no public discussion about rebuilding Highland Springs; that school underwent a significant renovation in 2008.
The about-face by Vithoulkas and the county’s Board of Supervisors caught even members of the Henrico School Board and school system’s Operations division by surprise; they and new Superintendent Amy Cashwell learned about it Sept. 13 – only a week before the public did, according to Henrico Schools spokesman Andy Jenks.
‘A series of things’ led to decision
Amidst the fanfare and genuine excitement about the announcement the day it was made and in the weeks since from many officials and citizens, one question that begs an answer is: What changed in five months?
It’s a question even Vithoulkas himself struggled to answer.
“I don’t know,” he told the Citizen this week. “I don’t know how to answer your question other than to tell you that a series of things occurred where we acquired more revenue, we were able to tie up some more land [a 15.8-acre site adjacent to the current Highland Springs site, which the county is buying for $1.4 million to house the new school], and then. . . there was unanimous sentiment on the Board of Supervisors that we really should rebuild [both schools] if possible.”
Vithoulkas credited Tuckahoe District Supervisor Pat O’Bannon and interim Brookland Supervisor Harvey Hinson with continuing to question why the county would invest $55 million in a rebuild of 55-year-old Tucker H.S.
School Board chairwoman Micky Ogburn attributed the suddenness of the announcement to Henrico’s finance team figuring out a way to make the financial aspect “work.” School Board members had concluded earlier in the year that the best approach would be to rebuild Tucker, she said.
“It just became clear to everybody,” she said.
But the ultimate decision to demolish Tucker High and rebuild it, and to build a new Highland Springs High, came from the general government side.
“The more we thought about it, the feedback that I got from the elected body was ‘This sounds really good,’” Vithoulkas told the Citizen. “The reaction from Amy [Cashwell] and Micky [Ogburn] was clearly positive. I didn’t sense any kind of negative reaction from anyone.”
Vithoulkas pointed to the continued over-performance of the county’s meals tax, which has produced far more revenue than imagined – $26 million in unbudgeted funds, as of June 30 – as one key factor in the decision, though most of that revenue existed in April, too.
The county will apply all of that money toward the rebuilds, as well as another $4.8 million that includes interest earnings from general bond proceeds and revenue from a recent sale of land adjacent to Three Chopt Elementary School.
To fund the lion’s share of the Highland Springs rebuild, officials will use $42 million from the 2016 bond referendum that had been earmarked for construction of a new Eastern Henrico technical center (which was and still is planned for Highland Springs High).
Additional funding from bond sale
The rest of the money for the projects will come from the sale of an anticipated $32.2 million in Virginia Public School Authority bonds.
Unlike a general obligation bond issuance – which requires voter authorization through a referendum – any state locality may issue VPSA bonds without the public’s approval, and many do. Of the 132 cities, towns and counties in Virginia, more than 100 have bonds outstanding at any given time, according to Virginia Treasure Public Finance Manager Jay Mahone, who helps oversee the program.
Henrico has sold VPSA bonds twice this century:
• in 2000, when it issued $15.2 million to provide partial funding for the construction of Deep Run High School and Twin Hickory Elementary School, as well as an addition at Crestview Elementary;
• in 2008, when it issued $45 million to cover unanticipated costs for projects included in the 2005 general obligation bond referendum (including the construction of Kaechele Elementary and Glen Allen High, and renovation projects at Henrico High, Brookland Middle and Mehfoud and Varina elementaries).
Selling bonds through the VPSA also significantly shortens the timeframe required to acquire funding. Traditionally, Henrico provides at least six months notice or more before taking a traditional bond referendum to voters.
Such referendums also typically contain a variety of projects in each of the county’s five magisterial districts – thereby better ensuring that the plan will pass. Placing just two school projects on a countywide referendum would have been a risk.
Highland Springs site was critical
A key to the plan was the sudden availability of the 15.8-acre Highland Springs site that straddles East Beal Street at Airport Drive, adjacent to the existing school’s football stadium. The new school will sit there, fronting on Airport Drive.
The county paid a fair price – about $88,000 per acre – for the land, according to Bob Porter of Porter Real Estate, a commercial real estate firm that has a number of property listings in the region.
Vithoulkas wouldn’t say whether, lacking a site for a new Highland Springs High, he still would have proposed a rebuild of Tucker. But such an idea likely wouldn’t have been well-received by Eastern Henrico representatives on the Board of Supervisors or School Board.
Construction work at Tucker will take place in phases, Ogburn said, so that students can continue to attend class in existing portions of the school 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.
At Highland Springs, classes will continue uninterrupted in the current facility until the new one is complete.
Among the remaining unknowns:
• What will happen to the existing Highland Springs High School?
“We know the existing structure will remain,” Jenks told the Citizen, “but how it’s re-purposed will come into clearer focus sometime down the road.”
• Where the new technical center will be located – as part of the new version of Highland Springs High, or in the existing Highland Springs facility?
The construction timeline for both new schools is aggressive, but one about which Vithoulkas is confident.
“The best things in life are hard,” he said. “Public schools are the lifeblood of any community,” Vithoulkas 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.”
