{"id":58489,"date":"2025-11-21T00:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T00:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/58489\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T00:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T00:00:07","slug":"richardson-north-junior-high-expansion-set-for-council-consideration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/58489\/","title":{"rendered":"Richardson North Junior High expansion set for council consideration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA plan to convert Richardson North Junior High School<\/a> into a middle school is moving forward.<\/p>\n

What you need to know<\/p>\n

The renovation will more than double the campus\u2019s footprint, expanding from 94,000 square feet to 228,016 square feet, according to city documents<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Richardson\u2019s City Plan Commission<\/a> unanimously recommended approval on a request to rezone the campus as planned development to accommodate the expansion during its Nov. 18 meeting.<\/p>\n

The project is part of Richardson ISD\u2019s initiative to transition all of its junior high schools to the middle school model<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Richardson North\u2019s transition will be funded by the district\u2019s bond<\/a>, which voters approved Nov. 4. The bond will also fund renovations at Apollo Junior High\u2014which the commission is set to review at its Dec. 2 meeting\u2014and new buildings at Liberty, Parkhill, Richardson West and Westwood junior high schools.<\/p>\n

The transitions have already occurred at Forest Meadow and Lake Highlands middle schools.<\/p>\n

“><\/p>\n

The details<\/p>\n

The majority of Richardson North\u2019s main building will remain, with additions to accommodate administration, library, fine arts, dining, athletics, art and career and technical education spaces, according to city documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat existing building has already got great bones for classrooms and academic space,\u201d Stantec Principal Architect Brett Holzle said. \u201cIt really makes sense to plug those into that space and move the … fine arts, athletics, library, media center and those kinds of things out to the northern ends of the site.\u201d<\/p>\n

The expansion would add a new gymnasium at the campus\u2019s northeast corner and two additional tennis courts.<\/p>\n

Reconfiguration of the school\u2019s two parking lots will add 23 parking spaces, and an additional driveway on Nantucket Drive is set to help accommodate pick-up and drop-off. The transition is expected to generate an additional 857 daily trips to the school, but staff does not anticipate \u201ca significant impact on the nearby roadway system,\u201d according to city documents.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next<\/p>\n

Richardson City Council<\/a> will have final say on the expansion at a future meeting.<\/p>\n

If approved, construction is expected to start in May 2026 and last approximately 25 months, Holzle said.<\/p>\n

Quote of note<\/p>\n

\u201cI attended North Junior High in 1970 … and it pretty much looks the way it did back then,\u201d City Plan Commission Chairman Bryan Marsh said. \u201cSo I’m very excited to see what’s planned there.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A plan to convert Richardson North Junior High School into a middle school is moving forward. What you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[31515,12537,160,162,161,2351,5810,31514],"class_list":{"0":"post-58489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-junior-high","9":"tag-middle-school","10":"tag-plano","11":"tag-plano-headlines","12":"tag-plano-news","13":"tag-renovations","14":"tag-richardson-isd","15":"tag-richardson-north"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}