Design Of New Schools Unveiled At March 4 School Board Meeting

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MD — The Anne Arundel County education board will be voting on schematic designs for three replacement elementary schools at its March 4 meeting. The design documents for Rippling Woods, Quarterfield and Hillsmere elementary schools are the next step in the process that, provided funding remains in place, will produce new educational facilities capable of supporting more than 1,800 students by the fall of 2023. The board will have another opportunity to review the documents as the process moves forward before bids are awarded for construction.

The board approved the projects in October 2019. Construction for each of the new schools would take approximately 2.5 years with all three expected to be completed within five years, Patch reported.

The project at Quarterfield Elementary, projected to cost $42.1 million, will increase the square footage in the building from 45,885 square feet to just over 84,000 square feet. The project will take 30 months to complete, with students remaining in the current facility until the new one is complete.

The Rippling Woods plan also will take 30 months to complete. It will increase the square footage in the building from 76,500 square feet to 101,500 square feet and will cost $52.5 million. Students will remain in the current building during construction of the new facility. This project will also eliminate the county's lone remaining open space elementary school.

At Hillsmere Elementary, the $38.6 million project will increase the school's square footage from 45,885 square feet to 68,000 square feet. It also will take 30 months to complete and students will remain in the current building as the new one is constructed nearby.
Pending funding availability, all three schools are scheduled to be completed by the 2023-2024 school year.

Members of the public wishing to testify before the board can sign up in advance online or by phone. Signups will open on the Friday before a board meeting when the agenda for that meeting is published and will close at 4 p.m. on the day before the meeting. Members of the public can sign up here or by calling 410-222-5311.