By Erin McClary
C & G Staff Writer

MACOMB TOWNSHIP — The brand-new, massive building that sat empty for a whole year on the corner of Heydenreich and 21 Mile in Macomb Township is finally turning into a school. Chippewa Valley’s new Seneca Middle School, that is.

On June 25, recently appointed Principal Todd Distelrath said that even after nine semi-truck loads of stuff from the school’s old Clinton Township building on Romeo Plank and 19 Mile, there’s still more to come. Right now desks, chairs, computers and pallets of textbooks are scattered in the building — as well as teachers and staff, who are organizing and preparing for the school’s hallways and classrooms to fill with students this fall.

The new Seneca was built during the 2006-07 school year with money from a 2004 bond issue approved by Chippewa Valley Schools Board of Education. But because of low enrollment and a lack of funding from the state, the school’s opening was postponed and it sat vacant for a full year.

Finally, though, the new Seneca will open its doors to students for its first official school year: 2008-09. The old building is currently undergoing renovations and will be used as the Chippewa Valley High School Ninth-Grade Center come September.

Distelrath said the two Senecas are pretty comparable in size; however, the new one has a few more classrooms, six science labs, an auxiliary gymnasium, two art rooms, an enormous stage, two computer labs and higher ceilings.

“This building is set up better for a middle school,” he said, detailing the well-designed pods that separate the sixth-, seventh- and eight-grade classes.  “And there’s plenty of storage in this building, that’s for sure.”

Distelrath, who got to put his foot on the silver shovel during a rainy ground-breaking ceremony a few years ago, said things couldn’t have worked out better for him. When Seneca’s previous principal, Sue Grenier, accepted a position as Chippewa Valley’s executive director of elementary education during the year that the new building sat empty, Assistant Principal Distelrath was next in line for the position of principal at the new building.

The staff will stay the same. And so will the students, as geographical boundaries for the new school were determined before last year, when CVS still planned on opening the new building for 2007-08. The only new faces will be the sixth-graders, Distelrath said.

“(The new building) will end up holding the same number of students,” said Diane Blain, director of school and community relations at CVS. “The current Seneca is packed. In the new (building), they are going to have classrooms dedicated to specific topics … (students) won’t be in load-bearing classrooms all day long.”

The new Seneca tops the old one in square footage by just less than 42,000 square feet. The old building was 158,000 square feet, and the new one, although originally slated to be 185,000 square feet, ended up being just short of 200,000. Blain said the new building, which cost right around $28 million to build, had extra square footage put into corridors to relieve student traffic.

Enrollment was around 1,200 before the boundary changes were made at the old Seneca. Going into the new building, Distelrath said, there will be about 1,056 students for the 2008-09 school year.

“The old building was pretty well maxed out,” he said.

The new building was built to accommodate the 1,200. It has 42 classrooms with 14 per wing. Because the new Seneca shares a property with Dakota High School and sat empty last year, its eighth-grade pod was used as Dakota’s “west wing” for an overflow of freshmen. Next year, Dakota’s freshmen will have their own ninth-grade center, which is also located on the campus.

Seneca’s technology education teacher, Paul Morici, said the new building will provide for a better hands-on experience for his students, as they have an expanded workshop and classroom to work in.

He referred to his old workshop as “circa 1968” and out of date.

“This one is far more suited for educating kids,” Morici said. “It’s designed around how kids learn today, as opposed to what kids learned in the ’50s.”

Also improved from the old building is Seneca’s stage, where Distelrath said the school’s choir program will finally be able to hold in-house performances. For years, the Seneca choir held its semi-annual performances at the Macomb Center for Performing Arts on the campus of Macomb Community College.

The new cafeteria will also accommodate three lunch periods with more than 400 students in each. The old one required four periods with only 360 students in each.

“We’re really, really excited to have it open in the fall,” said Blain.

The new Seneca also has a fitness room. Although it’s not filled with new, heavy equipment just yet, Distelrath said he’s not complaining.

“I’ve got a brand-new school.”

You can reach Staff Writer Erin McClary at emcclary@candgnews.com or at (586) 279-1118.