YPSILANTI, MI - Ypsilanti Community Schools will bring its middle school students into one school in a new location for the 2018-19 school year.

Ypsilanti Community Middle School, which is currently located at 235 Spencer Lane, will move to East Middle School, located at 510 Emerick St.

The current YCMS building is about twice as big as necessary to accommodate the middle school student population, said Superintendent Benjamin Edmondson, and East Middle School will provide a more personal setting.

East Middle School currently houses Washtenaw International Middle Academy and Washtenaw International High School.

The two schools are in the process of consolidating under the authority of the Washtenaw Educational Options Consortium, and they are expected to relocate to Ypsilanti's West Middle School, located at 105 N. Mansfield St., going into the 2018-19 school year. West Middle School currently is empty.

In addition to relocating Ypsilanti Community Middle School to a different building, sixth through eighth graders at Estabrook Learning Community will transfer to YCMS. Estabrook will be a second- through fifth-grade building starting in the 2018-19 school year.

"When you think about the configuration of students and combining them in our Small Learning Communities, it's just fitting that you would have all the middle school students in one unit, as opposed to being separated into two units," said Sherrell Hobbs, assistant superintendent for YCS.

Also, it will be easier to ensure all Ypsilanti middle school students will have the same experiences - like classes and field trips - when they are in the same building, Edmondson added.

Once the current YCMS building at 235 Spencer Lane is vacant, the school district will be looking to lease the space for a year or two while administrators explore options for "repurposing" the building after that, Edmondson said.

"We want to repurpose - so after two years, repurpose and open it up as something different, something very exciting to this community and to our school district," he said, adding that he recognizes some people feel the former Willow Run schools have been underutilized since the consolidation of Willow Run and Ypsilanti Public Schools in 2013.

"My attitude has always been that whatever decisions we make for these buildings will be in the best interest of our school district and our taxpayers," he said.

Relocating YCMS and Washtenaw International Middle Academy was one of the recommendations Ypsilanti Schools' facilities advisory committee made in March 2016, as the school district looked for ways to reduce the expense of keeping up vacant properties.

Ypsilanti Schools officials previously discussed relocating the middle school programs going into the 2017-18 school year, but the move was delayed a year to provide more time to prepare West Middle School for the two International Baccalaureate schools. Administrators also briefly considered starting an alternative middle school, but that is no longer part of the plan.

Here's a look at the progress made on the facility advisory committee's other recommendations for the school district's vacant buildings: