DAYTON, Ohio -- Local leaders, students, parents and community residents gathered Tuesday morning to celebrate a groundbreaking for the new Belmont High School at 1127 Wayne Avenue.

The new $21.5 million, 124,000 square-foot high school, designed by Levin Porter Associates, will be set on 47 acres formerly occupied by the Ohio Department of Mental Health with a presence on Wayne Avenue, between Epworth and Watervliet.

The new location was obtained through a land swap between Dayton Public Schools and the ODMH, which will eventually maintain the current Belmont site as green space. DPS will raze three buildings on the former ODMH site to make way for new school construction.

This site will make the new Belmont High School campus more visible to the surrounding community, becoming more a part of the neighborhood with facilities available to local residents, DPS Chief of Construction John Carr said.

The two-story building will serve 645 students and feature state-of-the-art classroom technology, a 2,000-seat gymnasium and regional athletic fields. Amenities, available for use by the surrounding community after school hours, include baseball, softball, football, track, tennis and soccer.

The new location is accessible to buses, cars and service vehicles from Wayne Avenue, eliminating the need to navigate residential side streets to enter the school grounds.

Belmont is part of the third and final segment of the districts school construction plan and is projected to be completed by Aug. 2011.