BRECKSVILLE, Ohio — The Brecksville-Broadview Heights City School District — for the second time in about four years — will rebuild five tennis courts behind the middle and high schools on Mill Road.
The courts are cracking and ponding, Superintendent Jefferey Harrison told the Board of Education in February.
It began happening just weeks after the last rebuild in 2022-2023.
“We feel that it’s time we need to take it into our own hands and repair it how it should have been done in the first place,” Brian Koss, the district’s safety and facilities coordinator, told the school board Feb. 25.
The school board is expected to vote Wednesday (March 18) on whether to hire Vasco Sports Contractors in Massillon to rebuild the tennis courts.
Vasco offered to perform the work for $302,199, which was the lowest bid.
Other bidders were Precision Engineering & Contracting Inc. in Solon ($349,574), Sona Construction LLC in Cleveland ($380,000), Protect-A-Cote Inc. in Cleveland ($386,000) and Geauga Highway in Middlefield ($475,000).
In February, the board hired ThenDesign Architecture — the same Willoughby firm that designed the tennis courts reconstruction the last time — to design the rebuild once more, for a fee of $19,750.
ThenDesign, as part of its services, has designed the repair of the tennis courts’ asphalt and stormwater lines, according to the company’s proposal to the school district.
Harrison told cleveland.com in an email that the tennis courts were rebuilt in the summer of 2022 by SCG Fields LLC in Brecksville for $607,832.
The courts reopened in fall 2023, about four months after Harrison was hired as superintendent, replacing Joelle Magyar.
This was after board member Mark Dosen, during an August 2019 meeting, noted that the existing courts were old and patched and needed replacing.
At the Feb. 25 board meeting, Koss said the tennis courts have failed sooner than they should have. He said the district had asked several agencies to perform tests in the hope of finding the cause.
Harrison told the board that district officials have worked with SCG Fields on the problem.
“We are in disagreement with them (SCG) on the reason for this,” Harrison said.
“We’ve done every imaginable testing possible to help find out why they (the courts) have failed.
“We believe we know why they have failed and we are taking it into our own hands to replace or remedy the courts and then we will figure it out after that,” Harrison said.
When asked by cleveland.com why the district believes the courts have failed, Harrison said, “The cause is yet to be fully determined.”
Harrison said that before the new tennis courts are built, the existing courts will be deconstructed. Photos and videos will be taken in an effort to find clues to what went wrong.
Harrison said the tennis courts replacement a few years ago was a major project to which residents donated money.
“If our community is going to trust that we do what’s best with the resources they give us, we need to make sure we stand by and give them a good product,” Harrison told the school board.
Harrison said the district will try not to interrupt the boys’ or girls’ tennis seasons when building the courts, but added that construction schedules will depend on the weather.