Brecksville-Broadview Heights City School District plans to sue the company that rebuilt its tennis courts, accusing the firm of shoddy asphalt work and drainage failures that left the courts cracking and pooling with water within weeks of completion. The district is seeking $300,000 in damages from SGC Fields LLC and plans to file the lawsuit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court within two weeks.
The school board unanimously approved a resolution authorizing the lawsuit on Oct. 21, according to cleveland.com. SGC Fields, described in the report as a Brecksville-based builder of athletic fields and courts, rebuilt the district's tennis courts in 2022 and 2023. Cleveland.com reported the rebuild cost $607,832, while a separate account from Citizen Portal put the investment at about $660,000; it is not clear from available reporting whether the two figures reflect different scopes of work.
Cracks and Standing Water Within Weeks
Superintendent Jeffrey Harrison said the courts began cracking and ponding weeks after the rebuild was finished, per cleveland.com's report. Citizen Portal separately reported that two to 2.5 of the newly installed courts developed premature cracking, and that district officials said core samples pointed to construction or material inconsistencies. The courts had reopened in fall 2023, and Harrison was hired as superintendent, replacing Joelle Magyar, about four months before that reopening.
The board's resolution, as detailed by the same cleveland.com report, states that the district and its consultants determined SGC had insufficiently compacted the courts' asphalt. The resolution also says SGC left sags or bellies in drainage pipes that restricted water flow, failed to remove old perimeter drains, and interrupted perimeter-drain flow either by placing fence posts in drains or by breaking old drainage lines during new drainage construction.
District Says Company Rebuffed Fix Request
The district asked SGC to correct its own work or pay for another rebuild, but the company rebuffed that request, Harrison said, according to the same report. Board President Mark Dosen said the board had approved more than $600,000 to rebuild the courts, only for problems to surface about a year later, and said the lawsuit could help the district recover its repair costs.
With SGC unwilling to fix the courts, the district turned to a different contractor. In March, the district agreed to pay Vasco Sports Contractors of Massillon $302,199 to repair the courts, the report states. In June, the school board approved a change order of up to $50,000 for Vasco, increasing the project's cost; some of that money went toward new fence posts and removal of old underground drainage pipes, with the remainder reserved in case further construction changes were needed. Harrison said any unspent portion of the $50,000 was returned to the district, and that the courts are now open and functioning as designed.
SGC Fields Points to Site Conditions
SGC Fields disputes the district's account of fault. Attorney Rob Remington of Hahn Loeser & Parks LLP, representing the company, said in a written statement that SGC is disappointed the district is filing suit, calling the company a longtime corporate resident of Brecksville and a national leader in athletic-field and multi-sports-court construction. Remington said SGC had been working in good faith with the district to evaluate the causes of the alleged defects.
Remington said the evidence gathered during that investigation suggests the court issues may have been caused by existing site conditions that were known to the school district and not adequately addressed by the project designs. He said SGC believes filing the lawsuit now is unnecessary and counterproductive.
This is not the district's first major investment in the courts. Back in January 2020, the district had announced plans to rebuild all five tennis courts behind its middle and high schools at an estimated cost of up to $580,000, according to an earlier cleveland.com report. At the time, the district considered an alternative plan to build two new courts beside three existing ones behind Brecksville City Hall, shared with the city, but chose the more expensive option of rebuilding at the existing site after a public meeting with tennis coaches and parents. A soil report from that period found the ground beneath the existing courts suitable for new construction.
