Arkwright-Ragsdale Elementary School
Atlanta, Georgia

An existing elementary school sat on the site of the proposed Arkwright-Ragsdale Elementary School on Lee Street in the City of Atlanta.  This existing facility and all associated improvements on the site were completely demolished and a new two-story, 93,000 square foot elementary school constructed in its place. The modern facility now provides 37 new classrooms, parking to accommodate 79 cars, a cafeteria, school offices and recreational facilities. 
 
This site was particularly difficult to develop due to its unusually small size.  The standard lot size for a school of this size is five-acres minimum, but this site was only 3.77 acres including the acquisition of two adjacent properties. An adjacent grocery store used a portion of one of the acquired properties for maneuvering and unloading trucks. The site plan called for this area to be occupied by the school building, so Atlanta Public Schools requested that Long Engineering, Inc. determine if these same truck maneuvers could be made on the grocery store property only. The answer was developed using software that tracks the wheel movements of a prescribed vehicle for user determined movements. This enabled an assessment of a variety of vehicles and movements to determine optimal solutions. 
 
Long Engineering, Inc. provided site development design that included establishment of the school finished floor elevation, elevation of all sidewalks and handicap accessible routes, grading of the parking areas and the bus lane and utility design to provide domestic water, fire protection and sanitary sewer service to the building. Storm water detention was challenging due to the limited area on portions of the site. Because the site is located in two drainage basins, two detention facilities were provided. The east facility is 75 feet of triple 5’ x 5’ reinforced concrete box culverts, and the west facility consists of 364 feet of 48” pipe.