Kellam High School | Virginia Beach, Virginia
After completing the site feasibility study with a local architecture firm, to examine the 1962 high school facility, the team made a recommendation to relocate and rebuild as opposed to renovating the existing structure. WPL worked closely with the architect in preparing conceptual plans for renovating the existing school. However, other sites were available and […]
After completing the site feasibility study with a local architecture firm, to examine the 1962 high school facility, the team made a recommendation to relocate and rebuild as opposed to renovating the existing structure. WPL worked closely with the architect in preparing conceptual plans for renovating the existing school. However, other sites were available and offered more accommodating land area for a more modern school. We then embarked upon an extensive analysis to determine the advantages and disadvantages of some pre-determined alternative sites. Five sites were identified by the City of Virginia Beach Public Schools (CVBPS) as candidate sites for acquisition. WPL, working with the CVBPS and the architect established a multitude of feasibility criteria and assessed each candidate site based upon those factors.
Once the site was selected WPL was commissioned along with HBA Architects in 2010 to design and oversee construction of the approximately $75,000,000 replacement for Kellam High School. As one of the early Sustainable Sites Initiative pilot projects the school incorporates many sustainable features including reforestation buffers, rain gardens, green roofs, and rainwater catchment and reuse on site. This school is one of the largest in Virginia Beach with roughly 336,000 square feet of building on a 108-acre site. Among many of the site’s exemplary features, the facility also accommodates a 4,500-seat stadium, a full-lane running track, several baseball and softball fields, eight tennis courts, and several large general practice fields. This project is a great representation of how WPL’s team of landscape architects, site engineers, and land surveyors acted as a cohesive team to make this project exceptional among other schools in this region.
WPL services included site selection, feasibility study, site analysis, stakeholder design charrette process, community outreach, site planning, landscape design, site design, site engineering, conceptual plans, arboricultural planning and design, bidding documents, construction administrator and rezoning.
