Stafford Schools Conducting Feasibility Study on Clift Farm Road Site for Drew Middle School Rebuild
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Stafford County Public Schools is looking at locating the new Drew Middle School on three parcels of land located on Clift Farm Road, off Leeland Road in the Falmouth district.
The school division announced last week that it is conducting a feasibility study on the parcels, which together encompass about 58 acres and are known as Oak Knoll Farm.
The feasibility study—which began about two weeks ago and will wrap up in mid-February—includes cultural resource management, archaeological and environmental work, “some” traffic analysis, and analysis of existing infrastructure, said Jason Towery, the schools’ executive director of facilities and maintenance.
Two of the parcels under consideration are currently owned by the Flippo family and one is owned by Jarrell Properties, Inc., which applied to the county for a rezoning from agricultural to urban residential in order to build a 141-home retirement community there.
County supervisors denied the application in May of this year, agreeing with nearby residents who had argued for almost three years that the project would adversely affect local farmland, traffic, and safety.
Towery told the Advance last week that the Flippo property is under contract with Jarrell Properties (JPI). He said the school division approached both parties about the possibility of studying the site as the location for the new Drew.
If the feasibility study finds that the site is suitable, final purchase of the land from the Flippos and JPI will also be contingent on approval of a conditional use permit and successful Comprehensive Plan compliance review, the school division wrote in a Facebook post last week.
Towery told the Board of Supervisors last month that the cost to purchase the three parcels is $2.5 million. Supervisors agreed to fund the planning and design work for the rebuild but have not yet approved the funding to purchase the site.
Towery said in an interview with the Advance that the School Board and division staff like the Oak Knoll Farm site for the rebuild because it is within Drew’s historic attendance zone and is just 1.5 miles away from the current school, which was built in the 1950s and is in poor condition.
The School Board already owns a large 181-acre parcel behind the Oak Knoll Farm site. The Board bought the parcel in 2006 for $4.8 million and it has remained undeveloped.
Towery said it was considered as the site for high school #6 but was ultimately rejected as unsuitable for that use. High school #6 is under construction off Truslow Road in the Hartwood district of the county.
“To get to the back [Clift Farm Road] parcel, you have to go through the front and do improvements to the road and infrastructure,” Towery said. “There’s a lot of benefits to these parcels but one of the difficulties is infrastructure. Water and sewer and roads in this area are not up to snuff.”
He said the purchase and development of the front three parcels will be to the benefit of the back parcel.
“The investment in that site benefits the schools going forward,” Towery said. “Ultimately, we increase the developability of that back site. That gives us an opportunity to look at co-location in the future, whether it be another potential school site or a central services complex—even partnership with the county.”
“It’s taking public dollars and investing in a single spot versus spending twice as much to develop two different areas,” he continued.
But Bob Rowlette, who lives off Clift Farm Road, said that as he talks to his neighbors, there are “a litany of questions” about why the Oak Knoll Farm property was chosen for the Drew rebuild.
“The School Board already owns a 181-acre property 600 feet down the road from this property,” he said. “It’s continually referred to as ‘a land bank.’ We hear that there may be a future need for it as a school. Well, you want to build a middle school, so why isn’t that property being looked at? Why is the public being asked to pay an additional cost to buy more land?”
Rowlette said that in the interest of transparency, he’d like to know what other properties in the county were considered for the Drew rebuild and whether there was a comparative analysis of the cost to develop the larger site versus purchase the Oak Knoll Farm site.
He said he’s seen the larger property considered and passed over for both the Stafford High School rebuild and for high school #6 and wonders what is planned for it.
“For those of us who live on Clift Farm Road, the question remains, ‘Ok, so if not a school, then what?’” Rowlette said. “It’s been going on 18 years now that [the School Board] has owned the property” and it’s yet to be developed.
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