BUFFALO TWP — Middle school students in the Freeport School District should have a new school to call home by next fall.

School leaders and construction partners on Tuesday evening broke ground for the $30 million middle school is to be built adjacent to Freeport High School.

It will be one story, 115,000 square feet, and house about 500 sixth, seventh and eighth graders.

It will replace Freeport Junior High School in Freeport, which was built in the early 1920s. District officials determined that renovations at that site would be cost prohibitive.

J. Greer Hayden, president of HHSDR Architects, of Sharon, designed the middle school building.

“There’s all of the technology you would expect in a state-of-the-art middle school,” he said.

Using a balance of “function, aesthetics and cost,” he said, features of the new building include energy efficiencies, like a fresh air ventilation system, occupancy sensors, and Energy Star equipment.

The Massaro Corp. of Pittsburgh will build the school.