Ely Elementary School

LOCATION: Elyria, OH

CLIENT: Elyria City Schools

Behnke Landscape Architecture developed the site plan for Ely Elementary, a new LEED-Gold, PK-4 school facility. The small 8.25-acre site created spacing challenges for the required program elements.

Site components include separate parent and bus drop-off lanes, two age-specific playgrounds, a full service yard, and public parking. Additionally, this campus was also designed to promote pedestrian access, bicycle access, and other modes of green transportation. This plan also required all stormwater to be contained on-site, and for earthwork to be balanced during construction.

The new Ely Elementary was carefully designed to reuse an existing school site and allow the existing middle school to remain operational during construction. The need to keep the existing school opened during construction and the urban nature of this site, created unique site design challenges.