Phillips Brooks School plans to expand Menlo facilities Phillips Brooks School plans to expand Menlo facilities (March 16, 2005)

** Private school expansion would add space, not students.

By David Boyce

Almanac Staff Writer

Unsuccessful so far in its search for a permanent home, Phillips Brooks School in Menlo Park got the go-ahead recently on a plan to upgrade its 4.5-acre Avy Avenue campus with several new buildings.

The five-member governing board of the Las Lomitas Elementary School District -- which leases the campus to Phillips Brooks -- has unanimously approved in concept the private school's plan to replace portable classrooms with permanent classrooms, convert the existing library into a cafeteria and multi-purpose room, and build a new library/computer lab and an administration building.

Before Phillips Brooks can start building, the Menlo Park Planning Commission must amend the conditional use permit for the site, and the state architect must approve the design.

Enrollment -- now at 269 students enrolled in nursery school, pre-school, kindergarten and grades 1-5 -- would remain under the 276-student cap set by the conditional use permit with the city of Menlo Park, said Joyce Massaro, the director of development.

With the school district's approval, the school can now move on to preparing detailed plans and cost estimates, said Ms. Massaro. The architect is Berger Detmer Ennis of San Francisco.

Because the project is still a concept, Ms. Massaro said, she "has no idea" of what it will cost. The Las Lomitas district will own the buildings, but Phillips Brooks will pay for all construction, she said.

Before any ground is broken, the district will also require an agreement regarding financial liability should the school vacate the campus before the project is completed and paid for, said Mary Ann Somerville, the Las Lomitas district superintendent.

A plan to move the school to a 92-acre property along Interstate 280 in Woodside fell through in 2002 when the Woodside Planning Commission rejected the project, in part because of environmental concerns.

Any move, whether to vacant land or to a remodeled building, would take four to five years, Ms. Massaro said she was told by real estate experts. "That is really what is driving us to invest in rented property," she said. "These improvements will make the campus better at supporting our existing programs."

The school pays about $800,000 a year in rent to the Las Lomitas district, about 6 percent of the district's $12 million budget, said district business manager De Modderman.

Enrollment in the Las Lomitas district is slowly expanding. Will the district eventually re-occupy the school with its own students? The growth is too slow to warrant such a move, said Ms. Somerville.

"We would be reluctant to give up any lease money," she said. "We think (the higher enrollment) is just a bubble working its way through the district." Besides, she added, the district can handle temporary increases in enrollment with portable buildings.
More space

If the seven new buildings proposed are constructed, it will expand the school's floor area from 18,000 square feet to 31,000 square feet -- an increase of 72 percent -- according to figures provided by the school.

With enrollment capped at the school, Ms. Massaro said the new facilities will address a cramped atmosphere in which the art, music, science and foreign language teachers have no classrooms to call their own and must stow away their materials at the end of each day.
Neighbor concerns

At the February meeting of the Las Lomitas school board, a few nearby residents expressed worries over traffic congestion, enrollment growth and parking problems, said Ms. Somerville.

Phillips Brooks has been leasing the campus since 1978. Over the years, school officials have dealt with traffic congestion in various ways, including staggered dismissal times, quickly matching students with parents during after-school pick-up, and encouraging carpooling.

This project would add about 30 new parking spaces by restriping the parking lots, said Ms. Massaro. "The message we got from the neighbors is the more parking the better," she said. "Our goal is to provide as much as possible."

The school is consulting with traffic engineers to further improve traffic flow and will be meeting with neighbors to keep them informed, said Ms. Massaro.

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