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On an almost but not quite unanimous vote, the Arlington School Board on June 29 agreed to split up 1,300 new high-school seats over two sites, tasking staff to come back with recommendations on how to best spend the $104 million projected cost.

The 4-1 vote aligns with a proposal by Superintendent Patrick Murphy to split the seats between new construction at the Arlington Career Center near Columbia Pike and by renovation of the Arlington Education Center, which currently holds staff offices, near Washington-Lee High School.

If all goes as planned, the facilities would be ready for students by the fall of 2022, perhaps earlier on the Education Center site.

Im excited about both of them, School Board Vice Chairman Barbara Kanninen said of the possibilities on each of the sites.

The proposal to use two sites rather than one came late in the planning process, which initially had been focused on putting the entire 1,300 new seats at either the Career Center, Education Center or on field space at Kenmore Middle School.

Splitting the seats up may allow the school system to buy some time before constructing no one yet knows where a new, comprehensive high school along the lines of Wakefield, Washington-Lee and Yorktown.

We do not have the capital funds to start that now, said School Board member Reid Goldstein, one of four School Board members to support the staff recommendation.

The lone dissenting vote on the superintendents proposal came from James Lander, who supported an option to raze the five-story Arlington Education Center and build a new school on its site. Lander said the benefit of that option was the school ultimately could be converted into a middle school when funds and space are available to build a new, full-size high school.

But Lander, like other board members, acknowledged none of the options was a panacea for addressing ongoing growth in the student body. There are no perfect answers, he said.

School Board members directed Murphy and staff to come back by December with fleshed-out details on the Education Center site, and by next May on the Career Center package, including costs, how to accommodate parking and fields, and what boundary revisions would be necessary.

Under initial planning figures, the cost for renovations to the Education Center (about $25 million) would work out to $40,000 to $50,000 per seat. The estimated $79 million to build something new on the Career Center site totaling 700 to 800 seats equates to a jaw-dropping $98,000 to $110,000 per seat.

The figures compare to $52,400 per seat for building a new Washington-Lee High School, completed in 2009, and $62,000 per seat for a new Wakefield High School, finished in 2013.

Tim Wise, president of the Arlington County Taxpayers Association, said the per-seat costs being contemplated in an era school officials say is focused on austerity should cause the public to do a double-take.

To say the Arlington School Board should have some questions for the superintendent and his staff would be an understatement, he said.

But School Board members say the budgets fit into the 10-year capital-improvement programs spending limits.

They need to be flexible, School Board Chairman Nancy Van Doren said of all new facilities. We have lots of exciting options going forward. We will do that together.

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Arlington School Board opts for two-site option for high-school seats - Inside NoVA