South Buffalo Charter School is now open!

South Buffalo Charter School has a new home. School officials unveiled the new $21 million building Thursday morning.

Located at 154 South Ogden St., the 100,000-square-foot building is bigger and more modern than the one at 2219 South Park Ave., where the school had been located in since 2001, said James P. Neimeier, president of the school’s board of trustees.

Classes begin Monday for the 800 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Features of the building include areas designated for the primary, intermediate and middle schools, a full-service cafeteria, library, technology and computer labs, art studios, and music and band areas.

Crews are putting the finishing touches on the 500-seat auditorium, two gymnasium facilities and new athletic fields that will expand interscholastic athletic opportunities for students, according to school leaders.

“This remarkable facility will soon be filled with young minds eager to learn, and that is when it will truly become a school,” Brian M. Wiesinger, the new head of the school and a former Burgard High School principal, said in a statement.

“The 800 students whose families have made the choice to be part of the South Buffalo Charter School community expect and deserve an excellent education. This building, and the dedicated educators who work here, are here to make that possible.”

Chartered in 2000, the school is the area’s second-oldest charter school. As student enrollment continued to grow over the years, the former building began to present certain space and logistical challenges, making it impossible for the school to accommodate additional students or expand its educational programming, school officials said.

The project transformed a long-vacant former brownfield site under the guidance of the state Department of Environmental Conversation’s Brownfield Cleanup Program.

The new building was designed by Stieglitz Snyder Architecture. Cannon Construction served as the construction manager.

Erie County Clerk Christopher L. Jacobs, Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown and other elected and education officials attended Thursday’s unveiling ceremony.