CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Charlottesville City Council is set to hear about three “schemes,” costing between $40- and- 60-million, for an Early Learning Center on the grounds of Walker Upper Elementary School during a work session on Wednesday.

The plans came back to the Walker Upper property after a few twists and turns over the last two years.

“We’re talking about a centralized home for our Charlottesville Early Learning Center, and it’s going to be a place that prioritizes the needs and learning styles of our youngest learners,” Amanda Korman Simalchik, CCS Supervisor of Community Relations told Cville Right Now. “This is a part of reconfiguration, and this fall we will have achieved reconfiguration of pre-K going to a centralized early learning center at Walker, which frees up space for our 5th graders to return to their local elementaries, which is made possible because Charlottesville Middle School, formerly Buford, has been renovated and expanded so it is now a true middle school serving grades six through eight.”

The last time city fifth graders attended their zoned schools was in 1988. Reconfiguration started being implemented in 2019 with full implementation set for this fall.

City Council has a work session set at City Space set for 4 p.m. on Wednesday, where they’ll see a presentation of a plan for the three buildings that comprise the Walker Upper complex.

“The pre-K is going to be in the current Walker space, and this summer there is a bit of minor construction to make it a fit for preschool,” Simalchik said. “And the main thing going on there is the addition of a new outdoor space that’s at grade so the kids can basically go outside from the classrooms to the outdoor play space.

“Then when we’re talking about what are our plans to build a permanent, modernized, fully upgraded Charlottesville Early Learning Center, school staff and city staff are working together to decide basically what plan is going to make the most sense for that.”

Simalchik said though there are three schemes, both city and school staff are leaning towards Scheme C, which was drawn up this year and is priced $51.8 million.

Scheme A was the first plan, drafted in 2022 and priced at $42.5 million, and Scheme B, which was drawn up last year and sports a $60.8 million price tag, has been what Schalchik called “the working hypothesis,” but it would require a lot of terracing and retaining walls and “fighting against the unique layout of the Walker space.”

The main Walker Upper building is on grade with Rose Hill Drive in front of it, but two other buildings, as well as where the primary ELC space will be, is downhill from Rose Hill and the property slopes.

“Our architects recently developed basically Scheme C what works more with the grade, and is fairly reasonable cost-wise,” Simalchik said. “Basically, it’ll be demolishing the current gym but building a middle school-sized gym. In addition, that will include an entrance on Rose Hill for walkers.”

It also maintains the current level of parking while Scheme B eliminates 39 current spaces.

Though the reconfiguration plan all along had been renovation of Walker Upper to accommodate an ELC, that plan was halted temporarily in April 2025, when the federal government briefly awarded its DOGE-eliminated Federal Enterprise Institute property to the city for the purpose of being used by CCS.

The city in its application included a possible use of the property to house the Early Learning Center as part of its application, which had to be education oriented. But the federal government pulled the rug out from under that planning when they suddenly rescinded that award and granted the application to the University of Virginia.

Then in September 2025, as part of a goodwill gesture to the community, UVA agreed to lease the historic Oaklawn property, around which Fifeville was built, to the city for $1 per year. The city subsequently has made that 5.2-acre property available for school system use, and Superintendent Dr. Royal Gurley and staff looked at some sort of possible ELC function there.

Earlier this year, the Superintendent and staff rendered Oaklawn not suitable for the ELC, which has brought that plan back to Walker Upper.

Also plugged into the Walker Upper plan is a “swing space,” which Simalchik said will be used for future construction at city elementary schools.

“Current Walker A and B buildings would be able to be used as swing space as we renovate and do a substantial modernization of each of the six elementary schools,” Simalchik said. “So basically, the students would use those spaces as their elementary school for a year while their school was undergoing a substantial renovation. We now have a long-term plan of possibilities that covers the next decade-and-a-half that includes substantial work.”

She said the long-term plan is inspired by Charlottesville Middle School, which school leaders have determined “is undeniably what kids deserve”.

“It was the first substantial school renovation in Charlottesville in 50 years, and we don’t intend to wait that long to do others,” Simalchik said.

While the work session is open to the public, there is no public comment period allocated.