To cheers and delighted smiles, San Jose Unified schools officials on Friday celebrated the rebirth of Trace Elementary School, where a pod of classrooms was burned in an arson fire two years ago.

But the new two-story building in the Rose Garden school, with 18 classrooms and a library/media center was old hat to many of the 1,000 Trace students observing the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The first- and second-graders have been occupying the classrooms since school started two weeks ago.

The J-shaped building wraps around a plaza large enough to accommodate the entire school, the district's largest elementary. Previously, there was nowhere for all students to gather at once.

"It's really a great building," said Steve Adamo, the district's manager of facilities and construction.

The building was designed by the BFGC-IBI group of San Jose and built by Swinerton Builders of Santa Clara at a cost of $8.3 million, paid by the district's insurance. Construction took a year and a half.

Trace's classroom pod was burned in an early-morning fire in July 2010. One teen pleaded no-contest to arson and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Another teenager is being evaluated for fitness to stand trial.

The new building has both sprinklers and centrally monitored alarms, neither of which the burned building had.

Contact Sharon Noguchi at 408-271-3775. Follow her at Twitter.com/NoguchiOnK12.