Pascack Valley students should prepare to say goodbye to the old tennis courts and hello to construction.

“There has been an ongoing plan for a couple of years but it’s over this past year that we’ve been able to solidify a specific plan,” PV principal Mr. Tom DeMaio said.

The old tennis courts will be knocked down this upcoming spring. As of now, the plan is to add an extra 36 parking spaces. There will also be a sidewalk that goes from the front of the building back to the softball field.

“Once we got approval to do the tennis court project in the back,” DeMaio said, “we knew we wanted to change the back area to eliminate the tennis courts and change the direction and flow of traffic.”

The addition of parking spaces is not the only change being made. The morning drop off point for some students will be altered with the new parking lot layout.

“We met with the police department, the fire department, and the engineers to go over some of the concerns they had, and some of the ideas that we had,” DeMaio said. “It’s still not finalized.”

In efforts to make the roads safer, students who take a right to turn into the school will turn where the current teacher parking lots are. As a result of this, the teacher parking lot will be changed. Parents will have to loop around to drop their children off at the side of the school by the gym entrance and make their way back to the front of the building. School buses will be unaffected.

“We wanted to change the roadway in the back to try to alleviate the congestion on the roads in the front. My main priority was to move the roadway away from the building so that you didn’t open the door and be out in the middle of the road. We wanted to create a safer environment for the kids,” DeMaio said. 

Students who take a left to get into the school will be unaffected by the changes.

New spots for extracurricular buses will be built as well at the side of the school.

“I don’t know if the [new roadway is] going to be inconvenient,” DeMaio said. “It may take a tad longer. Right now, you’re still waiting out on Piermont. Hopefully the traffic flow is smoother so you can get in and out.”

DeMaio stressed that it is important to note that “plans are still being made and concepts are still being discussed in conjunction with the police department, the fire department, and emergency services.”

“Once all the plans are approved and they go out to bid, the timeline is hopefully to start at some things before school gets out,” DeMaio said. “And then the minute school is out, we’d really get things up and running.”

More details will be made available as plans for the new parking lot designs finalize.