At Medfield's core, a school's new home eagerly awaited

What was once a collection of abandoned factory buildings in Medfield's downtown will soon be a beehive of activity, the first permanent campus for a flourishing Catholic school for girls.

Classes will start Jan. 23 at the Montrose School's new home, in renovated buildings that formerly belonged to Bayer HealthCare, just behind Town Hall.

"It's the kind of place where you can take learning seriously, you can take God seriously and questions of faith seriously," said the school's headmistress, Karen Bohlin. "It's about helping them realize that soccer practice and math homework and the semiformal dance are all places where they can meet God. And doing those things well and enjoying them."

The independent school enrolled 132 students this year from grades 6 through 12 at its building in Natick. School officials had originally hoped the new campus would be ready in September. They later doubled the students' holiday vacation to four weeks in order to give workers enough time to complete renovations.

The school will initially make use of a single structure, the Straw Hat building, which contains 19 classrooms, including three science laboratories plus a chapel, courtyard, and cafeteria.

Work is still underway inside the building and elsewhere on the 13.5-acre campus, which formerly housed research and development labs for Bayer. Of the sites's five other buildings, three are slated to be demolished before classes begin, and two will continue to be rented out as shops and offices.

The demolition of the three buildings, and the subsequent installation of lawns and playing fields on the site they occupied, will mark the end of the school's first phase of construction.

The second phase calls for the construction of a gymnasium, Bohlin said, though the exact design, cost, and siting of the building have not yet been determined. The process could require one to three years to complete, she said.

The school eventually hopes to grow to about 250 students.

"It's definitely a large family, and it's going to grow larger as we develop the campus and grow the school," Bohlin said. "Once we move in, I think we will appreciate how resourceful we were and how little we got by with."

The school is not affiliated with the Archdiocese of Boston. Its founders were inspired by the life and teachings of St. Josemaria Escriva , founder of Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic group .

The focus of the school, Bohlin said, is on developing the character and leadership skills of the girls. Escriva believed that families do as much or more to educate children as schools, said Bohlin, so the school is also founded on the belief that a close partnership between parents and teachers will provide a better education.

Prayers are said before many classes, Bohlin said, and an optional Catholic Mass is held every day. More than a quarter of the students are not Catholic, however, and they can choose to attend a quiet study hall instead of Mass.

The majority of classes offered follow a traditional liberal arts sequence similar to that of any public school.

Students embodied the principles of service to others taught at the school when they volunteered to sort, pack, and haul classroom materials in preparation for the school's move, Bohlin said.

"We had sixth- through twelfth-graders walking into administrators' offices asking, 'How can I help? What can I do?' " she said. "Everyone was a part of it."

Since its founding in 1979, Montrose has moved from Brookline to Westwood and most recently to Natick, where the school rents a building from St. Patrick Parish.

The school purchased the Medfield property from Bayer for $7.4 million last February, relying on money donated by parents and alumnae.

Tuition is $13,500, with more than 40 percent of students receiving some kind of financial assistance, Bohlin said. Students wear a distinctive school uniform of red sweaters and plaid skirts.

Town Administrator Michael Sullivan said the school should enliven the downtown.

"It'll be interesting to have activity there," Sullivan said. "It will be quite a change for the downtown. We've never had a school there. It's been a factory for 100 years."

Sullivan said he is not concerned about congested traffic or crowded streets, noting that Bayer at one time employed as many as 600 workers at the location that the school will occupy.

Nancy Kelly-Lavin, owner of Lord's Department Store, said at least one parent of a Montrose student has come into the store asking about sales of school clothing -- everything from hooded sweatshirts to flannel pajamas -- emblazoned with the school's logo.

"The businesses in town are hoping for a lot more foot traffic," Kelly-Lavin said.

Susanne Ferrantino, president of the Medfield Employers and Merchants Organization, said businesses are excited by the prospect of new customers.

"Everyone's very excited about it going in there," she said. "They think it's going to add to the community and bring in new people."