A groundbreaking ceremony for the new Austin Elementary School in Dunwoody was held Dec. 15 with plans to have the new school open for the 2019/2020 school year.
The new 900-seat school, which will replace the current AES on Roberts Drive, will feature advanced technology, an outdoor courtyard and numerous innovative student-success-focused amenities such as flexible furnishings and collaborative learning-spaces, according to DeKalb Schools officials.
The new Austin Elementary is being built on approximately 10 acres of Dunwoody Park, where the Dunwoody Senior Baseball fields were located. The DeKalb County School District and the city of Dunwoody reached an agreement in November for the city to sell the park land to DCSD for $3.6 million. The school district will also be handing over to the city the 9.8-acre site the current Austin Elementary School sits on after the new school is open. Future community input from Dunwoody residents will be sought to determine what to do with that property.
Also as part of the agreement, the city is constructing new baseball fields on about 8 acres of property at Peachtree Charter Middle School that will be used by the school and Dunwoody Senior Baseball league.
The agreement reached in November was the culmination of nearly a year of negotiations between the city and the DeKalb County School District to find a place to build a new Austin Elementary School to help ease the overcrowding in the district.