ADAMS TWP — The Mars Area School Board agreed to hear other proposals for design services regarding its plan to revitalize the school’s tennis courts at a meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 20.

Currently, the school has only three functional tennis courts because the ongoing Route 228 reconstruction project forced the school to reconfigure the parking lot surrounding two of the courts.

The Mars Athletic Department and girls tennis coach Mark Varlotta recommended to superintendent Mark Gross that the project should include five courts.

“Our athletic department and our coaches feel five is appropriate for the size of the school and the number of matches that we have,” Gross said.

Over the summer months, the school attempted to find courts off campus for the girl’s fall season. However, those efforts did not gain any traction.

While the three current courts are all playable, they are in undesirable shape with cracks in the asphalt and holes in the nets.

“They’ve been there quite a long time and are at the end of their age to even be repaired,” added Gross. “They’ve had work done to repair service, but they’re almost irreparable. We don’t want our kids playing on substandard courts. We’re Mars. We want to be proud of our facilities.”

The only design proposal the board received to this point was from Pashek+MTR. That landscape architect company estimated that the total cost of the project would be $1.8 million for four courts.

The goal in the coming months would be to determine if another landscape architect company could provide services at a more favorable price point.

“I guess we’ll find out,” said Gross. “We only had the one proposal so what the board is asking us to do is to see if there is any other organizations that would be willing to provide similar services and just make a comparison. We’re just doing our due diligence on it to make sure we’re being fiscally responsible.”