The TESD school board approved an additional fee letter for the now more than $28.7 million Athletic Fields Project during its Jan. 22 meeting, with plans to start construction around April.

The project includes two multi-purpose turf fields, five tennis courts, a softball practice field, a batting cage, new parking areas and a field house. The new facilities will be located on a portion of district-owned land between Cassatt and Irish roads.

TESD will make changes to the surrounding areas, such as constructing a new bus lane, building fencing in multiple locations, widening Cassatt Road, adding sidewalks, extending the high school speed limit zone and painting a crosswalk on the Conestoga and Old State roads’ intersection.

Conestoga administration and the school board began looking into the project in 2020 after receiving negative feedback from students regarding some student-athletes’ commutes to practice facilities outside of school. The original plan had an estimated construction budget of around $24 million and a tentative construction start date in fall 2023.

“We were pushed back a little bit, and simply because of a lot of these township planning meetings, you have to be able to get on their schedule and there was some redesigning that needed to include traffic mitigation strategies,” said school board facilities committee chair Dr. Robert Singh. “It’s not that it was unexpected. It’s just the nature of these things trying to get approval.”

With the redesigns, project construction costs rose by around $4 million due to inflation and funds for new traffic design additions required by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Tredyffrin Township. The school board is in the process of deciding how to raise and allocate funds to the project as it finalizes the 2024-25 budget.

“It’s sad to say everything costs more right now, and from when we started to where we are now, just the supplies, getting what we need — everything’s gone up,” athletic director Kevin Pechin said. “That’s more reason to sort of get this ball rolling and get going so we can save some money. It’s not cheap, but it’s going to be worth it.”

The majority of construction will occur over the summer in order to prevent significant transportation disruptions for students. Construction will tentatively finish in summer 2025.

Singh believes that the project’s road redesigns will relieve traffic around Conestoga and may save the district money in the future as it will no longer have to rent out some outside practice facilities.

“This project, as with almost all the projects that we do, is really at the heart of providing our students with the resources they need to succeed,” Singh said. “There’s always sort of a give and take affording something and deciding if it’s worth it or not, and we certainly believe these projects are worth it for our students.”