Comprehensive Site Plan

St. Andrew’s Eye on the Future

Our New 25-Year Comprehensive Site Plan

This plan is bold and visionary and it is intended to continue elevating St. Andrew’s to be best-in-class academically, artistically, and competitively in sports across all divisions with a strong focus on health, wellness, and spiritual growth to form a strong foundation for high achievement and innovation.

In 2021, the Board of Trustees and St. Andrew’s Administration began an intensive effort to develop a new Comprehensive Site Plan for the school. With a focus on creating the best learning environments for our students K-12, St. Andrew’s partnered with LPA architects to fully evaluate and make recommendations for both campuses.

The result of this 18-month process, which included significant community, faculty, and administrative input, is a dual-campus site plan which was approved unanimously and enthusiastically by our Board of Trustees. It includes a long-term vision for growth, improved and new academic, arts and athletic facilities to provide immediate impact, and more creative use of our ample outdoor spaces with an eye on sustainable design and build.

“I am beyond thrilled that we are moving forward with this incredible plan,” said Head of School Melissa Grubb. “This process has been thoughtful, visionary and inclusive of the needs of our students, faculty, and families and I cannot wait to see this plan become our reality. What a gift we have in front of us!”

LPA’s educational expertise is focused on the individual, supporting both the social and learning experiences of every student and educator. They have collaborated on strategic facility and campus plans, on new construction, and on complex building renovations that are innovative and high-performing. “Designing engaging spaces creates engaged students,” said LPA Project Architect Federico Cavazos.

With this new Comprehensive Site Plan, which contemplates the next 25 years of growth at St. Andrew’s, we believe this is the time to be bold and visionary for our students and teachers: ■ We want to focus on creating the best academic programs - and proper facilities to support these programs - to challenge and inspire our students, ■ We want to take advantage of the ample outdoor spaces at our Southwest Parkway campus and revitalize the use of outdoor space on our 31st Street campus with an eye on experiential and outdoor learning, ■ We want to offer both best-in-class sports facilities and a variety of enhanced arts programming and facilities that fuel healthy hearts and minds, ■ We want our spaces to invite collaboration and creativity while building community.

Simply put, we want St. Andrew’s to be the most desirable education in Central Texas that will continue to attract and retain excellent teachers and families.

During the course of this planning process, we have looked at reworking our buildings, our outdoor spaces and our parking. It became more and more apparent that the 31st Street campus is limited for appropriate program growth. We need bigger, better and more flexible classrooms, age-appropriate STEAM labs, special program areas, community spaces for our students and faculty, and designated fine arts facilities for Lower School students. Our beloved 31st Street campus has been able to expand over the last seven decades with the growth of our school and student population, but today we are simply out of room. At our Upper School, classroom expansions and improvements are very needed along with an additional gym, fields and court space, a dedicated STEM Center, a ten-court tennis facility as well as reimagined outdoor learning spaces to help educate and inspire our students.

“This Site plan will enhance the student and teacher experience in new ways and allow our students to learn and grow to their best potential as scholars, artists, athletes and servants,” said Mrs. Grubb.

This new Comprehensive Site Plan considers a variety of exciting options and opportunities, all with an eye on

SOUTHWEST PARKWAY CAMPUS SITE DIAGRAM AND ENTRY

31ST STREET CAMPUS SITE DIAGRAM AND ENTRY

SOUTHWEST PARKWAY CAMPUS GYM, FROM LEFT, STEM AND ARTS QUAD

31ST STREET CAMPUS CLASSROOM NORTH, FROM LEFT, DINING HALL, AND CLASSROOM COURTYARD

enhancing the student experience. On our Southwest Parkway campus, this plan envisions: ■ A new Health and Wellness Center and Gymnasium, ■ A new Middle School (relocated from 31st Street), ■ A STEM Center with new admissions and administrative offices, ■ Ten tennis courts and new fields, ■ Reimagined community and outdoor spaces for our students and faculty, ■ Updated classroom wings, and

On our 31st Street campus, our new plan includes: ■ A new 1st-3rd classroom building with larger and more flexible classrooms, ■ Improvements to Dell Hall to accommodate our fourth and fifth graders, ■ Collaborative spaces and STEAM labs, ■ A welcoming and identifiable entrance with new admissions and administrative offices, ■ A new dining hall and pavilion that will allow for indoor and outdoor food service, ■ Designated fine arts spaces and redesigned outdoor spaces for learning and play, and

The most transformative component of this new plan is the eventual relocation of our Middle School to the Southwest Parkway campus, where we would build a new multi-story, self-contained Middle School building.

As we evaluated the Middle School experience, and our hopes and dreams for our 6th, 7th and 8th graders and the reality of our limited space on the 31st Street

campus, it became more and more apparent that our students’ and faculty’s needs will best be met at the Southwest Parkway campus.

We will maintain the integrity of our programming and traditions that make the St. Andrew’s Middle School experience special, but a move to Southwest Parkway will only enhance those experiences and opportunities for our students, allowing for Middle and Upper faculty cross-collaboration, better curriculum alignment, student leadership and mentorship opportunities, and gradual student enrollment growth. In addition, the many years of transporting Middle School students to Southwest Parkway for sports and fine arts in the afternoons will no longer be necessary. St. Andrew’s administration is working on an increased busing plan that will allow for more transportation options between campuses and in the Austin area.

Next Steps

A Campaign Feasibility Study, including a communitywide survey, launched this summer in partnership with DiniSpheris and St. Andrew’s Advancement Office to help determine which projects will be prioritized. Those results will be shared in the fall.

As we look toward celebrating our 70th year as a school, we move into this next phase of our Comprehensive Site Plan with great hope and optimism for our future. This will be our largest community effort in the history of our school and we look forward to sharing more in the near future.