An aerial view of Saint Gertrude High School in 2023. The recently constructed school will open to students for the coming school year. (Photos courtesy of Tom Holdsworth/Saint Gertrude High School)
After moving out of the city in 2020, Saint Gertrude High School students finally have a school of their own.
The all-girls high school is preparing to welcome students later this month to its own $40 million schoolhouse after several years of sharing a building with the boys-only Benedictine College Preparatory on the same campus, at 12829 River Road in Goochland County.
The three-story, 49,000-square-foot Saint Gertrude school overlooks the James River near state Route 288’s World War II Veterans Memorial Bridge and features 18 classrooms, a large communal space called the Great Hall and a dedicated dining hall, among other facilities.
The school’s design was informed by Saint Gertrude’s former home at 3215 Stuart Ave. in the Museum District, as well as by input from the Saint Gertrude community, said Lori Garrett, president of Glavé & Holmes Architecture, the architect of record on the project.
“It was really important that this new facility convey that same sense of a home and architectural character that their old school had. That really guided us,” Garrett said. “This is not just Spanish colonial revival but it also gets into that mission expression of Spanish colonial revival.”
Bartzen & Ball was also tapped to provide architectural services for the project. Taylor & Parrish is the project’s general contractor.
The Great Hall at Saint Gertrude High School, which also can be used as an assembly area for events.
A major takeaway from student input during the design process was a desire for more social-gathering areas. Taking a page from other private schools, Saint Gertrude has established its Great Hall just beyond the school’s main entrance. The hall is intended for students to gather and study. It also can function as an assembly area with a 300-seat capacity.
“We visited some girls’ schools that also helped us in the process that were recently constructed; one in Nashville, Tennessee, and the other one up in Northern Virginia,” said Jesse Grapes, president of the Benedictine Schools of Richmond. “Both of those schools built a really nice, significantly sized gathering space where you walked into the building that had this incredibly welcoming atmosphere to it. There were girls there doing homework or just talking and socializing. … All of those things were inspiration for this space.”
Also inspired by another school is Saint Gertrude’s four student lounges with lockers. Each will be assigned to an individual class to make its own and use to store school materials and sports equipment during their time at Saint Gertrude.
“This is their own little space as a class for four years,” Grapes said.
The new Saint Gertrude High School features four locker lounges that will be assigned to each class to use and personalize.
The project broke ground in April 2021, and construction was largely completed this past March. Still under construction is the interior of the fine arts wing, which encompasses the entire third floor and features a dance studio and maker space as well as a workroom for pottery and sculpture. Also still on the to-do list is the interior of the school’s chapel, which is on the first floor.
The project has been able to avoid some of the challenges that have faced the construction industry during the pandemic such as cost increases and material shortages, Taylor & Parrish Principal John Locher said.
He credited that to the Benedictine board’s willingness to approve materials purchasing for segments of the project ahead of time. Locher estimated that the project was able to save about $2 million to $3 million on materials as a result.
“We were able to pre-purchase materials in the middle of the pandemic. So you take roofing insulation: It was six to eight months to get it. We were able to pre-purchase it long before we needed it,” Locher said. “We didn’t have a full set of drawings or anything like that. We had little packages that were coming out. The board, seeing what was coming down the pipe, allowed us to pre-purchase (the materials).”
The overall project is estimated to cost $40 million, a figure that includes both completed construction and what’s underway, as well as furniture and equipment. The project is planned to be fully covered by an ongoing fundraising campaign, which has secured about $35 million so far, Grapes said.
Saint Gertrude has 230 students. The school teaches grades nine through 12.
Saint Gertrude High School features 18 classrooms among other facilities.
Saint Gertrude moved to the Goochland campus in 2020, following Benedictine’s own move out to the county in 2013. The relocation of the girls’ school happened earlier than initially planned because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Museum District school site was sold earlier this year.
Benedictine and Saint Gertrude unified under the new corporation Benedictine Schools of Richmond in January 2020. Both schools are affiliated with the Catholic Church and share their campus with the Mary Mother of the Church Abbey.
Saint Gertrude will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday afternoon for the new facility.
An aerial view of Saint Gertrude High School in 2023. The recently constructed school will open to students for the coming school year. (Photos courtesy of Tom Holdsworth/Saint Gertrude High School)
After moving out of the city in 2020, Saint Gertrude High School students finally have a school of their own.
The all-girls high school is preparing to welcome students later this month to its own $40 million schoolhouse after several years of sharing a building with the boys-only Benedictine College Preparatory on the same campus, at 12829 River Road in Goochland County.
The three-story, 49,000-square-foot Saint Gertrude school overlooks the James River near state Route 288’s World War II Veterans Memorial Bridge and features 18 classrooms, a large communal space called the Great Hall and a dedicated dining hall, among other facilities.
The school’s design was informed by Saint Gertrude’s former home at 3215 Stuart Ave. in the Museum District, as well as by input from the Saint Gertrude community, said Lori Garrett, president of Glavé & Holmes Architecture, the architect of record on the project.
“It was really important that this new facility convey that same sense of a home and architectural character that their old school had. That really guided us,” Garrett said. “This is not just Spanish colonial revival but it also gets into that mission expression of Spanish colonial revival.”
Bartzen & Ball was also tapped to provide architectural services for the project. Taylor & Parrish is the project’s general contractor.
The Great Hall at Saint Gertrude High School, which also can be used as an assembly area for events.
A major takeaway from student input during the design process was a desire for more social-gathering areas. Taking a page from other private schools, Saint Gertrude has established its Great Hall just beyond the school’s main entrance. The hall is intended for students to gather and study. It also can function as an assembly area with a 300-seat capacity.
“We visited some girls’ schools that also helped us in the process that were recently constructed; one in Nashville, Tennessee, and the other one up in Northern Virginia,” said Jesse Grapes, president of the Benedictine Schools of Richmond. “Both of those schools built a really nice, significantly sized gathering space where you walked into the building that had this incredibly welcoming atmosphere to it. There were girls there doing homework or just talking and socializing. … All of those things were inspiration for this space.”
Also inspired by another school is Saint Gertrude’s four student lounges with lockers. Each will be assigned to an individual class to make its own and use to store school materials and sports equipment during their time at Saint Gertrude.
“This is their own little space as a class for four years,” Grapes said.
The new Saint Gertrude High School features four locker lounges that will be assigned to each class to use and personalize.
The project broke ground in April 2021, and construction was largely completed this past March. Still under construction is the interior of the fine arts wing, which encompasses the entire third floor and features a dance studio and maker space as well as a workroom for pottery and sculpture. Also still on the to-do list is the interior of the school’s chapel, which is on the first floor.
The project has been able to avoid some of the challenges that have faced the construction industry during the pandemic such as cost increases and material shortages, Taylor & Parrish Principal John Locher said.
He credited that to the Benedictine board’s willingness to approve materials purchasing for segments of the project ahead of time. Locher estimated that the project was able to save about $2 million to $3 million on materials as a result.
“We were able to pre-purchase materials in the middle of the pandemic. So you take roofing insulation: It was six to eight months to get it. We were able to pre-purchase it long before we needed it,” Locher said. “We didn’t have a full set of drawings or anything like that. We had little packages that were coming out. The board, seeing what was coming down the pipe, allowed us to pre-purchase (the materials).”
The overall project is estimated to cost $40 million, a figure that includes both completed construction and what’s underway, as well as furniture and equipment. The project is planned to be fully covered by an ongoing fundraising campaign, which has secured about $35 million so far, Grapes said.
Saint Gertrude has 230 students. The school teaches grades nine through 12.
Saint Gertrude High School features 18 classrooms among other facilities.
Saint Gertrude moved to the Goochland campus in 2020, following Benedictine’s own move out to the county in 2013. The relocation of the girls’ school happened earlier than initially planned because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Museum District school site was sold earlier this year.
Benedictine and Saint Gertrude unified under the new corporation Benedictine Schools of Richmond in January 2020. Both schools are affiliated with the Catholic Church and share their campus with the Mary Mother of the Church Abbey.
Saint Gertrude will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday afternoon for the new facility.
$816 / sf…. Wow….
“We spared no expense!”
The building is exquisite. Imagine how much nicer our public schools could be if our wealthy citizens invested in the community instead of building palaces like this.
Regardless of the amount invested, government officials would find a way to embezzle/squander it. Exhibit A – City of Richmond.
I’m not speaking of just financial investment. I’m talking about investing time and resources. A rising tide helps all boats, and instead we get an exclusive education palace off 288.
It wasn’t too long ago the city was ready to bus kindergarten students out of their schools to other schools outside their district. Why on earth would anyone with any sense donate time or money to a group of folks who have such a lack of business or education understanding or leadership basics? Private schools exist as a way to “pay” to not have to worry about dealing with a lack of leadership. Change the leadership in the public sector and you will see an increase in support. Until then, you will see more and more demand for private school.… Read more »
Every time RPS gets a new superintendent, more backwards ideology comes out of their mouths, and then people who understand realities predict that the outcomes will be WORSE after the new measures are put in place — but it takes time for people to learn — sounds good to idealistic young people, but not people with more experience. I lived in NoVa when Michelle Rhee was turning around DC public schools and when the Fenty people got voted out and the Marion Berry types in, and when Rhee had to resign to let the people who wanted DCPS to go… Read more »
People put their kids in places like this to get them AWAY from things more than to get them TO other things — it’s quite a hassle for many to shlep their kids to such schools. I could give a thousand examples, but just look at what San Fransisco, for one thing, has done to the Math curriculum — dragging all high performance students down so that certain ones will temporarially look better. The result — the students they tried to help have then tested WORSE on Math scores and the high performing ones whose parents have been able to… Read more »
A rising tide is also considered flooding……
Our wealthy citizens do invest in community schools,it’s called taxes.
Yes, we actually spend more on public schools as a society than just about every other country.
And we get the worst outcomes per dollar spent on it.
We actually have some very nice looking public schools, including in the city. Having a pretty building and money are only a part of what makes any school “nice”. You can have an average building and relatively low funding, but if you have good teachers, a committed board, and involved parents, I would take it for my kids over any building like this without the latter three characteristics.
The last Chesterfield school announced was $100 Million. I think that should be a “very nice” facility. There are many short comings in our public schools but money is not necessarily one of them. Example being Richmond spends more per student than Chesterfield, Henrico or Hanover. The testing results don’t corelate to money spent per student.
Successful people don’t invest in failed concepts like the gov’ment education system
The last time I checked this is still a free country. If parents can afford to send their children to a Private School that meets their requirements, which includes their faith, that should be acceptable to all of us. By the way Public School financing wouldn’t have allowed pre purchasing, which saved several million dollars, and would have probably included a “prevailing wage” clause, which increases the cost of construction. In effect building a Public School, in most jurisdictions, means you get less for the dollars spent, and the taxpayers end up footing the bill. As an aside the Parents… Read more »
Why don’t you also want public schools to be this nice? Nothing I wrote contradicts anything you write because I didn’t say private schools should be illegal. I said it would be preferable having leaders of our community investing time, resources, and money into public schools more often instead of building exclusive schools like this. You only address money and to say they “saved” anything when spending $40M on 49k sq ft is laughable.
I have taught in public schools. I have taught in private schools. Success is rarely about poor leadership in education. It’s about parent involvement. Look up how much money per student each city and county spends per student. Sadly, last I checked, the City of Richmond spent more per student than Henrico, Chesterfield or Goochland. Has it yielded the desired results? No. Are parents solely to blame? No. Is leadership or money solely to blame? No. But parents are a huge piece of the puzzle. Ask any teacher who has been on the job 10 years or more what changes… Read more »
You are so right Martha. Everyone has some blame, even teachers.My Mother was a 4th grade teacher in Fairfax County for 35 years. She spoke with each student’s parents once a month to update them. She had 35 students in her classes due to explosive growth in the County. All parents appreciated the effort. Who did not? The other teachers at the school because they were under pressure to make the same efforts. Eventually She was made limit her calls to quarterly. Your VEA at work.
Yep. I’ve heard it constantly from teachers in public schools, and I don’t even know any RPS teachers. I am not just talking about Virginia — the high school I went to I met a guy who teaches there and he said that he “never sends anyone to the Principal anymore” — why? He said that he had taught at rough schools for 15 years and things had changed so much that it was counterproductive for him to send kids to the Principal because he “was tired of being made the Bad Guy” — just 15 years ago the Principal… Read more »
Yet the NEA is pushing to remove a lot of the parental influence…….the NEA is taking in loco parentis to a whole new level.
Justin, go out and look at the newly rebuilt Tucker High School or even the new Huguenot High School, not shabby to me.
he doesn’t care – he and several others flood the comments on BizSense stories with almost exclusively negative bashing of the City, even when, as here, the stories have nothing to do with the City of Richmond
Craig, I believe your comment is in reference to Brian Glass who does indeed bash the city whenever possible. My comment here didn’t mention any locality, I most certainly love the city of Richmond, and I’m a strong proponent of public education.
Part of the problem is who controls the schools, and where the money goes. Unfortunately, the parents don’t care about the corruption or demand a high educational environment. Indeed, a woman got herself elected to the Richmond school board because her child kept getting suspended and she wanted to stop suspension. My school district in NYS had a way to deal with this — they just yanked you out of school and put you in a school for troublemakers that sucked so bad that they had an incentive to get out. The fact that parents voted her in, as if… Read more »
Average cost to build a public school according to VDOE is $280 / sf. Depending on the method of construction contracted, Pre-Purchasing is permitted, and prevailing wage isn’t necessarily required.
I’m certainly not a member of the wealthy elite, but I have a child enrolled at Benedictine College Preparatory School, part of the same Benedictine Schools of Richmond as Saint Gertrudes and located on the same campus as this beautiful facility. I cannot speak directly to the Saint Gertrude’s experience, but I can absolutely speak to the life changing experience that our family has encountered in becoming part of this school system. Our family received little to no help and support from our public school officials for matters that involved youthful mistakes, and which resulted in school and community bullying… Read more »
Amen!
Congrats to SGHS/BHS and BSOR community – look forward to grand opening tonight. A great day for Catholic education
Had no idea this beautiful thing had happened!! Until today!! Bless their new campus!!