MONTGOMERY — In the future, residents strolling past the new Montgomery Elementary School will see touches of their city's historic past.

        Architects worked with school officials and Olde Montgomery preservationists to create a blend of old and new in their designs.

        “It kind of extends the historical district right on through there,” said Dick Camp, Sycamore Schools' business manager. “It has a very dramatic facade to it that ... incorporates the old part of the school.”

        Excavation work for the three-story, $11 million facility could begin this spring at 9609 Montgomery Road, where the original school was built more than a century ago, and its replacement continues to educate kindergarten through fourth-grade students.

        Architectural drawings reveal these historic touches:

        • A tower reminiscent of the one on a historic church at Montgomery and Remington roads.

        • A bell from the original school building. Students will be able to ring it from the second-floor media center.

        • A large, semicircular limestone slab, also part of the original school. It says “Montgomery Special School, 1899.”

        “It's just wonderful that they incorporated that into the building design,” said Mary Lou Rose, a Montgomery Historical Preservation Association member. People “like that ... old-fashioned feel.”

        Montgomery Elementary School now encompasses 42,000 square feet. The new school will have 78,000 square feet of space.

        Susan Caldwell, co-president of the school's Parent Teacher Organization, is eager to see the new school come to fruition.

        “The design itself is wonderful,” she said. “It blends with the city of Montgomery. (And) it seems totally state of the art.”

        Sycamore Schools has wanted to replace the present elementary school for at least three years. The aging facility was built in 1952.

        Administrators considered rebuilding in Indian Hill and on another Montgomery site, but both plans were scratched.

        They were left to consider the 5.5-acre lot where the school now sits. The quandary of building a new school while keeping the other in operation prompted architects to consider a three-story structure, said Thomas Lindsey of Cole & Russell Architects.

        “We don't have the luxury of tearing down the building and utilizing the site during construction,” he said. “That meant we had to go to a three-story building instead of a one-story (one). The tight site made it a challenge.”

        City Council members must approve a conditional use permit for the site before construction begins. Discussion is set for Wednesday's session.

        If approved, excavation work would begin in March. The school would open in 2003.

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