Progress toward a new unified Matoaca Middle School began last week with a groundbreaking ceremony at 6001 Hickory Road.
School district and county officials and construction and architectural representatives were on hand for the Jan. 4
Phase I of the project will result in a new 38,255-square-foot wing being added at the Matoaca Middle School East campus at an estimated cost of $15.6 million. That addition will include 20 to 30 new classrooms, Matoaca school board member Rob Thompson said Friday. The project will ultimately result in one middle school at what is now the Matoaca Middle School East campus. The east and west campuses are currently 1 mile apart, with the west campus located at 20300 Halloway Avenue.
Phase I is scheduled to be complete by January 2020, at which time the sixth and seventh grades will move to the east campus, joining the eighth grades and the center-based gifted program.
The timeline for Phase II of the project has not been completed yet, district spokesman Shawn Smith said. He noted that Phase II will involve the construction of the remainder of the district’s prototype middle school building.
The current Matoaca Middle West campus will be the location for the new 92,802-square-foot Matoaca Elementary School, which is estimated to cost $30.7 million and be open by September 2020.
“Combining these two campuses allows for a more unified middle school community and a more efficient operation,” Thompson said in a press release. He called the plans a “win-win for the Matoaca community.”
Thompson said school district officials looked at nearly 40 sites in the area for the new middle and elementary schools, and the district ended up saving a lot of money by using the current campuses. Thompson explained that the district needed 25 to 30 acres that are not in a floodplain or wetland area, which proved difficult.
“It’s a very exciting day when we can break new ground on a project that’s going to impact two other projects,” county supervisor Steve Elswick said.
Jack Clark of RRMM Architects said the groundbreaking was the fourth of 10 planned for Chesterfield County Public Schools in relation to the voter-approved 2013 bond referendum.
Clark said Southwood Builders just finished the new Enon Elementary School and will be working on the addition at Matoaca Middle School East and the conversion of Matoaca Middle School West into an elementary school. Work on the west campus is scheduled to start in the next several months.
