Mars Area School District’s elementary school expansion, which had been expected to start this month, is on hold for a little longer.

The renovation, which is expected to cost $23.9 million, will be slightly delayed after the school board rejected all construction-related bids for the project at a special meeting Wednesday, May 21.

The board will have Jon Thomas, the project manager, as well as Mark Schiller, the lead architect, rebid the project with more specifics of what the board wants.

Assuming bidding is wrapped up around October, expected completion for the project is now likely to be around December 2026. Originally, the project was expected to start this month, and be completed sometime in the summer 2026.

Mark Gross, Mars superintendent, said the district and board’s desire to keep costs close to the original budget and not get out of hand was the main reason for restarting the bid process.

“It was felt that the bids came in a little high, and some of the things that were bid on weren’t quite what we felt were needed,” Gross said. “There was some discrepancy in the bids.”

Gross said when new bids are sent in, the outline of what the district is looking for will be more specific, to come in closer to budget.

“Parts of the bid, they were doing things we don’t necessarily need, and there was some misunderstanding with some of the contractors, we assume,” Gross said.

Planning for the project has been ongoing since March 2024, while official bidding on construction elements of the project opened April 11 and closed May 16.

Once the project is completed, the elementary school would be able to hold kindergarten through third-grade students. There also is a plan to renovate Mars Area Centennial School in the future, where fourth-grade classes would be moved to.

Board member Justin Miller asked if it would make sense, now with the elementary project seeing a delay, to hold off for a bit and do both the elementary and centennial projects at the same time. Thomas told the board it would make more sense to slightly delay the elementary renovation and try to get back on track.

“I don’t think you want to have two of them totally going at the same time, particularly if you’re looking at ending one of them mid-school year,” Thomas said.

Mars’ business manager, Debbie Brandstetter, said the district is still planning for a $10 million bond issue for project funding toward the end of 2025.

Thomas told the board that when the rebidding process happens again, it will take them to around October, and that around then will be a “more favorable bid period.”

The board expressed a desire to receive bids with lower costs. But as the board starts to redo the bid process, it will look to see if there is anything it needs to cut anything.

“When you bid and you’re perfectly fine with all those decisions, all those little details, that’s great. We’re in a scenario where we’re going to cut a little bit,” Schiller said.

This would include areas such as what type of windows and flooring to use in the building. According to a May 13 presentation from Thomas and Williamson Program Management, possible cost savings could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars by changing floor material in the corridors and cafeteria, and plastic sprinkler piping instead of schedule 40 sprinkler piping.

“We want a good, low-maintenance, long lasting, quality-built building,” Miller said.