Work has begun on two buildings in the Bloomfield Hills Schools as the district embarks on a major facility reconfiguration.
Voters approved a $200 million bond last year that will fund the rearrangement, which will move the district from three middle schools to two.
The district held a groundbreaking ceremony in May on renovations to the closed Lahser High School, 3456 Lahser Road, which will reopen as a middle school in fall 2023.
A second groundbreaking was held on Thursday, July 29, at the current Bloomfield Hills Middle School, 4200 Quarton Road. Construction on that building is also expected to take two years.
“We’re here to celebrate the next phase in a really exciting project for our district. This will take our district and community into the next several decades,” Superintendent Patrick Watson said at Thursday’s groundbreaking.
Disruptions to Bloomfield Hills Middle School students should be minimal, as most of the construction will be on an expansion of the building, said Karen Huyghe, district spokeswoman.
The Board of Education will likely give the two middle schools new names this fall.
East Hills and West Hills, the district’s two other current middle schools, will reopen as elementary schools.
The current Lone Pine Elementary will relocate to the current West Hills building. The current Eastover Elementary will relocate to East Hills.
The Fox Hills preschool program will relocate to the current Eastover building. The district hasn’t decided Lone Pine’s fate.
Conant and Way elementary schools will remain at their current locations.
When the bond work is complete, the district will have one high school, two middle schools and four elementary schools.
District officials have said the building reconfiguration will help address issues at aging facilities and provide amenities that modern students need.
All students will attend school in the relocated buildings in fall 2023, with construction of some new support spaces taking place across the district until the following fall.
The school board will likely determine attendance boundaries this fall, but they will not go into effect until 2023.
District officials have said that some buildings currently have greater student populations than others because of more growth in certain neighborhoods. Officials hope to even out enrollments while still taking family legacy considerations into account.
The new middle school currently housed at Bloomfield Hills Middle School will have more than 114,000 square feet of renovated space and 40,000 square feet of new space. The district is temporarily calling it South Hills Middle School.
The former Lahser High, temporarily called North Hills Middle School, will be home to 98,000 square feet of renovated space and 88,000 square feet of new facility.
The design of both centered around a sense of belonging, team teaching, integration of support services and access to common spaces, according to a statement from the district.
For more information about bond projects, go to https://www.bloomfield.org/bond-information/bond.
