The Piney Branch Elementary School (PBES) on Maple Avenue is obsolete, deteriorating and dysfunctional. It’s time for it to be torn down and replaced. No half measures will do.
Fortunately, on June 30, 2025 the Takoma Park City Council adopted a resolution recommending to Montgomery County’s Board of Education to do just that: to build a new Piney Branch School on the same site and keeping the swimming pool. The City Council has done its job representing the wishes of residents. Ultimately, what gets built and when is the County’s decision and expense.
Alas, less fortunately the suggested conceptual design for the new school building is not especially imaginative. It falls well short of what is effectively an urban, high density school site. In fact, I was shocked by the amount of land given over to an asphalt parking lot right on Maple Avenue.
First, let’s go back in time to understand what we have. Built 54 years ago, opening in 1971, PBES was then one of the County’s few middle schools serving grades 5 to 7. Oddly, it had a swimming pool but no playground. Built on the smallest of all county school sites, MCPS must have been desperate. Lucky Takoma Park.
The school’s architectural style is a kind of “Brutalism” that was popular in midcentury. The style emphasized flat, bare brick (or concrete) facades, glass and excluded any decorative design features, colors, and human scale aspects. The school is rather remindful of a detention center.
The incredibly constrained 1.9 acre site forced an awkward, multilevel arrangement of odd-sized teaching spaces, some with no daylight, and a byzantine interior circulation pattern. PBES was an ugly duckling from the day it was conceived.
For several years MCPS has been looking for a way to increase the school’s capacity by adding classrooms. Climbing attendance pressures have necessitated a quest for finding more space. Finally, with the adoption of the Minor Master Plan Amendment earlier this year, MCPS was able to launch a serious feasibility study of the future of Piney Branch. Serious because this study has meant a commitment to resolving this issue.
The County hired an architecture firm, Stantec, to conduct a series of community meetings basically to test out various schemes for the school’s future, and to obtain residents’ opinions on the matter. The design team presented its findings to the City Council July 23.
Predictably, the design team’s presentation took the form of describing three different remodeling solutions and a fourth one that would build a new school from the ground up, each with and without a pool. It seemed painfully obvious to me that doing a partial renovation would be simply trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. It is not like the building is an architectural gem or has any redeeming sentimentality attached to it.
Stantec had not yet completed a cost projection of any of the proposed plans at time of its presentation. But experienced developers know that large scale restoration and renovation almost always costs more than new construction. That’s because of the many unknowns that make it nearly impossible to accurately predict costs.
Engineers cannot know what lies inside the walls. Infrastructure cannot be replaced piecemeal. Whole energy and HVAC systems have to be replaced including the water supply and plumbing systems. Stuff built in another century decays and wears out. Technology becomes mechanically and environmentally obsolete.
We now live in a digital world. Back in 1971 people were still using typewriters, dial telephones, and found services in the Yellow Pages. School teachers stood in front of blackboards armed with chalk and erasers.
Deficiencies enumerated by Stantec include:
- classrooms that can be entered only by passing through another classroom
- a playground accessed by outdoor stairs –33 steps to be exact
- numerous complex ADA violations
- leaking pipes throughout, rain coming in during heavy storms
- limited or no natural light in some rooms
- inefficient mechanical systems
- insufficient parking
- unacceptable conflicts between parental drop offs and bus offloading
- even the pool’s equipment needs upgrading. The list goes on.
Renovation and various additions could not address all of the core issues embedded in the building. There’s significant risk that renovation would cost much more than new construction.
Even if costs were identical, why would we want to do all this work and still end up with an old and aging building, and an ugly one at that?
It also should be obvious that the project requires inclusion of a new swimming pool. Stantec’s proposed concept design shows that a community accessible pool can be accommodated on the site.
A city of Takoma Park’s size needs to have its own public pool for residents. It’s an essential component of a heathy lifestyle for all ages where one can soak, socialize, swim laps or learn to swim. Many lower income residents lack the means to join expensive pool clubs that typically cost well over $500/year. The Lunch and Learn organization (of which I am a board member) has taught hundreds (if not more than a thousand) black, brown and tan kids the joys of swimming.
In the final analysis, Stantec’s concept plan fails to consider a way to greatly reduce the land area dedicated to parking. Maple Avenue represents the formal heart of Takoma Park, serving the city’s Community Center and city offices, the new library, the indoor swimming pool, two public schools, and numerous apartment towers.
The Minor Master Plan Amendment adopted this year calls for Maple Avenue to become a “Green Promenade”. Stantec seems to have given it little, if any, regard because the whole front of the property along Maple Avenue shows a parking lot for staff.
To quote the Minor Master Plan:
“The Green Promenade provides a unique opportunity to repurpose lands that would ordinarily lie undeveloped. The Promenade offers environmental benefits and educational, cultural interpretation, and social opportunities and a quality outdoor amenity attracting and benefiting residents and visitors alike. In its ultimate implementation, the green promenade will be a multi-functional pedestrian space with wide shaded sidewalks, street trees, curbside stormwater management, and places for residents to sit and gather. It will be a green link to Sligo Creek and Long Branch Stream Valley Parks and potential new green space on the Washington Adventist campus.”
There is at least one solution that begs consideration, which would honor the Master Plan. It is to elevate the future school building (not the pool or the gym) above the parking lot, so that cars can park beneath it. This would also make the school’s first floor be level with the uphill playground to the rear so that children don’t have to climb 33 steps to play. It’s a safety consideration that will benefit kids with disabilities. Kids, staff and visitors will enter the school from below by stairs and elevator, and avoid rain and snow. Perhaps not all the parking can fit under the school, but green space along Maple Avenue can be greatly enlarged adding hugely to the loveliness of the school’s setting and entry way.
Stantec’s proposed parking lot is not a good look. It is just more of the same! Maple Avenue is already lined with acres of parking lots. As a 1.9 acre high-density, urban school site, the project demands innovation. It is way too small for a suburban parking lot. It won’t come cheap of course. To achieve the “Green Promenade” vision unconventional solutions have to be employed and dollars spent.
