Walking onto campus the first day of school, students could not help but notice the swath of uncovered ground next to the McAfee Center.

This now-barren spot will become home to a new multimillion-dollar music building.

Creating a new state-of-the-art music building is the result of the Measure E bond, a measure passed in the spring of 2014 that will renovate facilities at both Los Gatos and Saratoga High School.

The new music building will be approximately 23,000 square feet and have two stories. Other projects around campus include an additional multi-purpose room to meet the needs of sports teams and other groups, renovation to the paths near the tennis courts, turfing of the upper field and a Wi-Fi upgrade, among many other improvements.

According to principal Paul Robinson, construction for a new music building was long overdue.

“Our band program is huge,” Robinson said. “The facilities they have right now were built way back in the ‘60s, so it can’t house a band that can put 200 people on a field. They were just inadequate.”

To make room for the new building, the testing and learning center, the CASSY program and the ASSIST program, all of which used to be housed in the demolished Building H, will be moved near the parking lot behind the office by Labor Day.

Relocating the music program opens up space on campus to build more classrooms for the Media Arts Program or for traditional instruction, Robinson said.

In addition to the new music facilities, a multi-purpose room will be built near the tennis courts. The exact location has not yet been determined.

“It’s almost like putting in one more small gymnasium, yet you can use it for all sorts of different purposes,” Robinson said. “You can use it for instruction purposes, and you can use it for athletic purposes.”

Other large-scale projects are continuing on at the school, including the turfing of the upper field  and softball field.

This upgrade will cut the high water costs involved in maintaining these fields. Additionally, the multi-purpose field will be lit, so more than one group can use the fields for evening practices.

While these projects are still gradually progressing, other projects have been completed, including construction meant to prevent water runoff on the paths around the pool and the tennis courts.

“That whole upper field used to drain right through the middle of the tennis courts and run all the way to the parking lot, so that our parking lot would have mud and dirt all over it from time to time,” Robinson said. “Now we’ve redone all the drainage for the fields, because they'll be artificial turf, and they'll drain a lot easier.”

Stopping the runoff will also prevent structural damage to the tennis courts.

On the technology side of Measure E, the school is also working to upgrade its  Wi-Fi.

Robinson said that the plan is to expand the Wi-Fi bandwidth to increase speed and strength, while also increasing coverage, so that there would be Wi-Fi around the sports stadium.

Wi-Fi upgrades are set to be completed by the end of September. Turfing is expected to be finished by late October. Current calculations estimate that the music building will be completed in July 2017. Costs for these projects are expected to around $19 million out of the more than $40 million of allotted funds for Measure E construction on Saratoga High’s campus.

Updates can be found on Twitter by following @SHSMeasureE.