SAINT CLAIR — The Saint Clair Area School District is looking for some help to finish replacing the bleachers at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
“It was just time. The wood is getting old,” Jason Bendle, school superintendant and principal, said Thursday.
For the past four summers, the school district has been replacing sections of the wooden bleachers with new aluminum seating. About half have already been replaced. About four staff members did the work each summer. The labor cost about $12,000 each year, Bendle said.
“We just had less hands than in years past,” he said.
Bids are due at the school district by 3 p.m. Monday. Bendle said a couple companies have submitted bids for the project. The district will evaluate the bids at an upcoming meeting and decide whether or not to pursue the project, he said.
“We are seeing what the costs would be and seeing if it would be cost effective to continue to do it by ourselves or bring someone else in,” Bendle said. “We want to be fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars.”
Nativity BVM High School, Pottsville, is the only football team that uses the field. They will host their first game of the season at the field at 7 p.m. Sept. 2 against Jenkintown.
Bendle said sections of the bleachers will be roped off and a rail will be put up by then.
After the bleachers are completed, Bendle said, the district will look to renovate other aspects of the field like the wooden press box at the top of the stands. He said they will likely explore having students from the Schuylkill Technology Center take on that project.