On my commute to work, one of my routes takes me past the Dunn Loring Administration Center. It's a darling Colonial Revival former school building that is now getting demolished for a new school building.
In the 1930's, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) sought to modernize its school facility fleet, phasing out one and two-room schoolhouses in favor of larger ones with more amenities and indoor plumbing. They applied for grant money to build eight of these schools through the Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal to help restart America's economy following the Great Depression. The school system decided one of these new schools should be placed in Dunn Loring. They bought a plot of land from Joseph Bolden Taylor, a Black man who had been enslaved earlier in his life (and then lived to be 103, passing away in 1950!). Construction on the school started December 31, 1938. Due to Dunn Loring and other concurrent construction projects, Fairfax actually pushed back the first day of school in 1939 from September 7th to 21st so they would all be ready to open for students.
When Dunn Loring did open, the segregated White elementary school started out with five classrooms and an auditorium in the center. The population had continued to grow during the school's planning and construction phases, so it was immediately overcrowded. Two pairs of permanent classrooms were built onto the building in 1940 and 1944, bringing the total classrooms up to nine, as well as a cafeteria expansion in 1950. Temporary solutions were also implemented, including adding two quonset huts and converting the auditorium to classroom duty at times. Eventually, more schools were built in the area so Dunn Loring could have a manageable student population size.
Dunn Loring, and the rest Fairfax County, would remain segregated until 1960, when the courts forced the school system to start desegregating. The White and Black student populations slowly merged together, fully completing the process in the fall of 1966.
In 1978, after nearly 40 years, the Dunn Loring School was closed. While it had received an infrastructural update in 1975, the area's school population had shrunk considerably. The 1978-79 school year projected Dunn Loring to be 50% empty, so the school system closed the school and divvied its students to the nearby schools. After sitting empty for a decade and a brief 2-year lease to the Islamic Saudi Academy, the building was converted into school administrative offices between 1988-1990 and received an addition of a new wing. Along with offices, the building also housed special education and parenting programs. The Dunn Loring Administrative Center would keep this role for another nearly 40 years.
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| Dunn Loring's southern elevation |
By 2021, the population around Dunn Loring was growing again. With that in mind, the Fairfax School Board voted on a plan to convert the Dunn Loring Center back into an elementary school. They contracted Samaha Associates to work on the designs. Fairfax touted that they "have the opportunity to return the building to its original purpose and support the needs of students in the surrounding community. The repurposing of the Dunn Loring Administrative Center will provide approximately 900 students with an elementary school rooted in history and poised to provide 21st-century learning, preparing young children for bright futures."
A year later, Samaha and Fairfax released three site layout options. All of them involved demolishing the current building in favor of a newer facility. What happened? Fairfax released the following statement:
"The design consultant evaluated the potential to reuse any portion of the building as part of the design process. Unfortunately, we could not keep any of the original building and meet current educational requirements. To attempt to reuse the building would also increase costs significantly."
Community members were not happy with the chosen direction for the property. They noted multiple potential problems, including increased traffic and safety concerns, tree preservation, encroaching on nearby housing plots, and building a large building on such a tiny parcel of land. They also wondered if the school was even necessary to begin with, with some attendance forecasts showing the surrounding elementary schools projecting to have declining attendance over the next couple of years.
When it came time for the Fairfax County Planning Commission to vote on the plan, they initially deferred their vote due to wanting more information and more community outreach. Many on the commission criticized the school system for their "dismissive" attitude toward historic preservation in general, as well as not working with the Fairfax County History Commission nor the Fairfax Architectural Review Board on these plans. Eventually, Fairfax did start working with the groups, and thus was able to get some movement on site approvals. During a later rezoning vote over the site with the Fairfax Board of Supervisors, FCPS was further reminded to "be a good neighbor." FCPS did agree that they would save some items for an interpretive exhibit in the new school building, including the front entryway, the school's PWA plaque, and 50 bricks.
Earlier this year, the Dunn Loring Administrative Center closed down in phases, with its programs and offices moving to different buildings. The center was emptied of furniture, utilities were cut, and the building was made ready for its impending destruction. Demolition started around the second week of September. The process has been slow. It appears the school system is recycling the building's materials, so they are sorting through the rubble looking for what can be salvaged. Once demolition concludes later this month, work will begin on the new four-story school. It is expected to open in Fall 2028 and enroll approximately 1,000 students.
It's a little sad to see so much work go into actively not doing anything towards historic preservation initially. I definitely agree that Fairfax Schools has been very blasé towards the building. Personal anecdote time: back in the spring, I emailed the school system to ask if I could visit the school and take some pictures of the interior to document the building prior to its demo. They responded that there was a Dunn Loring Center Heritage Day with guided tours on Saturday, May 30th, 10am-12pm. It sounded like an interesting event, so I moved some plans around for that day so I could visit. I got there around 11:35am, where I found staff already breaking things down. There had been guided tour(s) earlier, but none at my arrival time. In fact, I actually had to speed through viewing the building because they were closing and locking it all prior to 12pm. Between myself and some alumni I spoke to, we agreed the event was not well publicized. Ending a 2-hour event earlier than it was scheduled? You set a low bar of expectations and still managed to not clear it. It would have been nice for FCPS to have made a little more of a bigger deal about this.
Here are some of the pictures I took around the school on that day:
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| Woodwork around front door |
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| View from the front door. One alum told me the door to the left was the Principal's Office. |
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| I loved the archways |
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| Courtyard in the middle of the school |
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| The white wall in-between the doorways was originally where the stage was. |
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| Men's bathroom in oldest wing |
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| Hallway |
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| "Elevator" |
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| Backrooms vibes in the former Vending Machine room |
SOURCES
(If you liked this piece, I write history on a lot of schools in neighboring Loudoun County on my other blog, My Summer with Loudoun Schools. Check it out!)
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