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What was once a Mountain View strip mall, complete with a Kohl’s, JoAnn Fabrics and 24 Hour Fitness, is officially on its way to becoming a new school campus.
Demolition recently began on an 11.7-acre plot of land within the San Antonio Shopping Center, where the Los Altos School District plans to build a 607-student school.
The start of construction has been a long time coming, with the district originally buying the land, dubbed the “10th school site,” back in 2019. A combination of the COVID-19 pandemic, funding challenges and controversies over which school to put on the site stalled the project for years.
In October, the school board approved schematic design plans and directed staff to pursue allocating the campus to Bullis Charter School when it’s complete. But the charter school, which has long had a contentious relationship with the school district, has strongly objected to being moved.
While a final decision on which students will use the new school hasn’t been made, the district is moving ahead with building the campus. Crews began to demolish the existing buildings on June 15 and the site is on track to be ready for students by fall 2028, according to Assistant Superintendent Erik Walukiewicz.
“We’re really seeing a lot of movement, and it’s been going great,” Walukiewicz told the Voice.
Following demolition, construction crews will start installing all of the necessary underground utilities, Walukiewicz said. Then, they will start building a foundation for the campus.
The plan is to construct a two-story school with three main buildings that will include 29 classrooms, plus administrative offices and a library. Additionally, the school will have outdoor play areas, separate buildings for a gym and multipurpose room, school drop-off and pick-up areas, and a dedicated parking lot.
The future campus has been designed to be able to accommodate students from transitional kindergarten through eighth grade, but that doesn’t mean that it will do so. Unlike any of the district’s schools, Bullis runs a TK-8 program. However, it also enrolls about 1,000 students, which is far more than the new campus is meant to house.
The charter school is currently split between two district campuses: Egan Junior High School and Blach Intermediate School. In February, the district presented plans to split Bullis between Egan and the 10th site.
This spring, the district’s board started having discussions with the charter school’s board to work out “the particulars” of these pending changes, Walukiewicz told the Voice.
The school district is planning to host an official groundbreaking ceremony toward the end of this summer, he said.
“It’s really taken a community effort … to get to this milestone,” Walukiewicz said. “To actually see demolition starting, it’s exciting.
Traffic on California street should be interesting when it opens, great planning on making it one lane. Guess they can always make it a one way street if too many people complain.
I’m glad that progress is being made here. I know that people have been working hard to make this a reality.
But I think it’s a bad idea and a bad location for this. I always have. Too much commercial surrounding it, and roads that are not really designed to accommodate the mixed use; and a parking problem.
We’ll adapt, of course. We always do.
This is not going to come out as planned. That is, if there WAS a plan. The Board of Trustees got a bond measure passed on 2014 to get $150M for facilities construction. They opined that they could get the so called 10th site, build a new school, and even have money left over. Well, that didn’t work out. They sat on that $150M for the most part and ended up buying this Kohl’s site land in 2019, so 5 years after they had the bond approved. It then turned out that the process was very complicated and they would need more money, as in about $150M MORE money. They had still not issued the last half of the 2014 bond authorization but they got Measure EE passed in November 2024 for $350M. They have now allocated about $150M of thst 2nd bond toward this boondoggle project. So they have another $200M left to issue on the 2024 bond, but they can’t do this for several years now as there are funding limitations for issuing bonds.
So, what are the board members talking about at meetings. They have more than once talked about needing to issue yeat ANOTHER bond. Will the voters through more money into this LASD pit? Stay tuned….
Keep student population in mind, for the proper context. Back in 2014 when LASD fixated on getting a 10th site, the number of students served living in the LASD attendance area was about 5000 students, plus another 200 in LASD who don’t live within the attendance area. Some of the LASD students attended Bullis Charter, which was about 950 in district students.
Now LASD itself enrolls 3350 students, subtract then 200 out of district kids served by LASD, so about 3150 in district students at LASD schools. Nowadays Bullis Charter still serves about 900 in district students, plus their on 125 from out of district.
So the total LASD resident students has dropped from 5000 (both charter and traditional) in 2014 down to 4050 kids in 2026. So 20% less kids, a drop of 950 kids total.
So LASD really needs the10th site? Not hardly! And yet the board talks about getting okay for EVEN MORE bond money than the $500M they have had approved since 2014 (but not exactly SPENT yet).
Yes, that’s a good point. It certainly feels like we need another school, what with all the residential construction, but it’s not enough to offset demographic changes resulting in fewer children. I mean, that could change with rapid growth in the San Antonio area, for instance, but it’s not guaranteed.