Mars Borough is about a square mile of hundred year old houses around a flying saucer. Adams Township is the 20 square miles wrapped around it, and it is where most of the Mars Area School District actually lives: the planned neighborhoods, the golf course community, the new townhomes, and nearly all of the housing built here in the last thirty years. A Mars mailing address is far more likely to be in Adams than in the borough.
If you searched homes for sale in Adams Township PA and found a mix of new townhomes, established colonials, and golf course estates in the same search, that is the township. Here is how to make sense of it.
| Adams Township at a glance | What to know |
|---|---|
| County | Butler County |
| School district | Mars Area, except the Pine Township side of Treesdale, which is Pine-Richland |
| Type | Township, roughly 20 square miles, mostly planned neighborhoods on former farmland |
| Population | About 14,000 as of the 2020 census |
| Commute | 10 to 15 minutes to I-79 at Route 228 |
| Best known for | Treesdale, Emerald Fields, the new townhome communities, and Adams Township Community Park |
Where Adams Township is and what it feels like
Adams Township is in southern Butler County, directly east of Seven Fields and Cranberry Township, with Route 228 running through its southern half and Route 8 on its eastern edge. About 14,000 people live here, up sharply over the last twenty years, and almost all of that growth went into planned neighborhoods built on former farmland.
The feel is more spread out than Cranberry. There is no corporate park. The commercial strip on 228 is a fraction of the size of Cranberry’s, and once you get off it you are on two lane roads with plans tucked back in the trees. Adams Township Community Park is the center of civic life, and working farmland still sits right up against the newer plans. That is a fair summary of the township: new houses, real farms, ten minutes from Target.
Mars Area School District
Adams Township is the heart of Mars Area School District. The district covers Adams Township, Mars Borough, Middlesex Township, and Valencia Borough, and it enrolls about 3,600 students, which is roughly half the size of Seneca Valley next door. It consistently ranks among the top districts in Western Pennsylvania.
The size is the selling point. Class sizes stay smaller, the schools sit close together on the Route 228 side of the township, and the district has the kind of everyone knows everyone culture that is hard to find in a district twice as big. The trade off is fewer course and program options than a large district, and the district has been planning for growth because the plans keep filling.
One important boundary note. Treesdale, the golf course community north of Route 910, straddles Adams Township and Pine Township, and the line runs through the middle of it. The Adams side is Mars Area. The Pine side is Pine-Richland. Same neighborhood, two districts. I covered that in my Treesdale guide, and it is the first thing to check before touring a house there.
The neighborhoods, plan by plan
Adams Township is really a collection of plans, and they are not interchangeable.
Treesdale is the best known name in the township. Golf course, country club, larger homes mostly built in the 1990s and 2000s, and the highest price points in the township.
Emerald Fields is one of the newer large plans in the township, with a mix of single family homes and townhomes. It draws relocating families because the homes are newer, the layouts are open, and it is a short drive to the Mars Area schools.
The established 1990s and 2000s plans, Adams Ridge among them, have mature trees and a range of colonials, and they make up most of the resale market here.
Then there is the townhome boom. Ryan Homes has had two townhome communities open in Adams Township this year, both in Mars Area. For buyers who want the district without a single family home budget, townhomes are currently the way in.
Finally, the rural edges toward Route 8 and Valencia still have older homes on acreage. Those come up less often and rarely last long, because acreage in Mars Area is the hardest thing to find on the corridor.
What homes cost
Townhomes are the entry point, established colonials make up the middle of the market, and newer construction, Treesdale, and the acreage properties sit above that. I can pull exact closed comps for any plan you are considering.
Compared to Cranberry, Adams is a little quieter and generally a little easier on the budget for equivalent age and size, with the same Butler County property tax advantage over Allegheny County. Compared to Pine and Marshall across the county line, it is meaningfully less expensive for a similar house, which is why Wexford shoppers so often end up here.
Commute and daily life
The I-79 interchange at 228 is 10 to 15 minutes from most of the township. Downtown Pittsburgh is 35 to 45 minutes depending on the time of day. The Pennsylvania Turnpike at Cranberry is close for anyone heading east or west. If you work in the Cranberry Woods corporate park, you are 10 minutes out.
Route 228 traffic is the honest downside. The stretch from Adams into Cranberry backs up in the evening, and PennDOT’s widening work along 228 is the long term fix. Most residents route around it on Three Degree Road or plan errands outside rush hour.
Daily life is genuinely pleasant. The Mars Borough main street is five minutes from anywhere in the township for coffee, the library, and Mars Day in the summer. Cranberry’s shopping is ten minutes. The community park is where the township gathers. It is a place where kids still ride bikes to practice.
Who Adams Township fits
It fits families who want a top school district in a smaller package, newer homes, and a slightly slower pace than Cranberry. It fits move up buyers coming from a townhome in Cranberry or Seven Fields who want a yard. It fits Wexford shoppers who are tired of the Allegheny County price tag and tax bill.
It is a weaker fit if you want to walk to anything, if you need to be in the city in twenty minutes, or if you want the depth of programs that a district twice this size offers.
If you want to actually look
The municipality line sets your schools and taxes here more than anywhere else on the corridor, so verify the parcel, not the mailing address, before you get attached to a listing. That is doubly true in Treesdale.
If Adams Township is on your list, get in touch and I will set up a search limited to homes inside the Mars Area boundary and flag the ones worth seeing in person. Selling first? Start with a valuation of your current home, or call me directly at (412) 980-5654.
Comparing it to the borough itself? Read my Mars Borough guide next.
