Stone Ridge Coping With Surrounding Road Construction

3D rendering of Stone Ridge School's planned turf field, via Stone Ridge School 3D rendering of Stone Ridge School's planned turf field, via Stone Ridge School 3D rendering of Stone Ridge School's planned turf field, via Stone Ridge School 3D rendering of Stone Ridge School's planned turf field, via Stone Ridge School 3D rendering of Stone Ridge School's planned turf field, via Stone Ridge School

With State Highway construction on the edges of its campus and the summer closure of Cedar Lane nearing, the Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart is smack in the middle of some of the most pronounced BRAC-related changes in Bethesda.

It hasn’t been easy for Stone Ridge — a pre-K through grade 12 all-girls Catholic school that has also had to deal with the enrollment decreases that hit most private institutions during the recession.

During Tuesday’s meeting of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Implementation Committee, Stone Ridge Board member and Committee representative Rich Vogel said the traffic-clogged state of Rockville Pike and the many road improvement projects did encourage a discussion of moving the school some place else.

But Stone Ridge leadership decided to stay put, doubling down on the school’s location at Rockville Pike and Cedar Lane with a campus improvement plan.

Construction could start on the first major part of that plan — a $6 million, FIFA regulated size turf field — in early May.

“It’s very much our home,” said Eric Osberg, the school’s director of finance and operations.

Osberg on Tuesday explained that the field was crucial to keeping Stone Ridge up to par with other private school facilities in the area. It’s also crucial to a new road and traffic circulation pattern on campus necessary because of SHA projects in the area.

The campus has three existing entrances, one on Rockville Pike and two on Cedar Lane.

The Rockville Pike entrance will have to be moved south toward Naval Support Activity Bethesda (NSAB) to accommodate SHA work on that side of the road — work that has already begun on the edges of Stone Ridge’s campus.

The Cedar Lane entrance that leads to a small parking lot will be closed permanently when SHA does its dedicated turn lane project on the road starting in June. That project will require Cedar Lane at Rockville Pike be shut down for a period of about two months, though exact details haven’t been provided by SHA.

Osberg said access will remain during the project at Stone Ridge’s other Cedar Lane entrance.

The turf field project will include construction of another road to be connected to an SHA-provided curb cut directly across from Elmhirst Parkway.

“That drove some of our own thinking about getting moving on some of the campus projects that we want to do,” Osberg said.

Stone Ridge was founded in 1923 and moved to the suburbs in the 1940s. It’s last major expansion came in 1996. A pool was built in 2005.

It’s largest enrollment was 812 students in the 2001-2002 school year. This year’s enrollment is 655 and Osberg said the school hopes to grow to a maximum of 740 students in the next five years.

“It is a campus that is ready for some investment and change,” Osberg said.

The overall expansion project will include reworked classrooms, upgraded gyms and a new performing arts center — the school currently does its major Christmas performance at The Music Center at Strathmore.

But the first phase of the project will be the field. The school’s existing grass athletics field isn’t holding up, Osberg said, especially compared to the new all-weather turf fields of other private schools and some public schools.

It will take about six months to complete the field, which will include bleachers, a retaining wall and wiring for field lights. It will serve the school’s field hockey, soccer and lacrosse teams as well as the school’s gym program.

Though Stone Ridge hopes to use the field exclusively through at least the spring of 2015, the school does anticipate it will rent out the facility to community recreation and sports league use.

3D Renderings via Stone Ridge School

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