GAINESVILLE – The Hall County Commission will vote Thursday evening to begin the process of restoring to the original design of the North Hall Community Center and Park the tennis courts that never were built.
“When the park was done, the master plan for the park called for tennis courts,” Commissioner Scott Gibbs explained. The facility sits in Gibbs' district on Nopone Road near Cleveland Highway.
But the plan was altered, Gibbs explained. “We were pretty tight on budget, it was in the height of the recession, so some things had to be cut and tennis courts were one of them.”
Now that the financial outlook has brightened, Gibbs said restoring the courts has become a priority for him. “When we did SPLOST VII, part of my list for my district was to go ahead and build-out some tennis courts.”
Gibbs estimated that the SPLOST funds needed to complete the master plan and include the tennis courts would fall between $800,000 and $1 million.
Robert Woodworth is a math teacher and tennis coach at North Hall High School and addressed the Board about the urgent need for tennis courts to be constructed in north Hall.
“In the city of Gainesville, the park department has 15 lighted courts. In south Hall, there are 20 parks department lighted courts. In north Hall there are zero,” Woodworth said.
“We’d like to have 15 or 20 lighted courts also,” Woodworth argued.
With Woodworth were representatives from the USTA (United States Tennis Association) and the Northeast Georgia Tennis Association to help present Woodworth’s case for constructing a tennis complex at the park.
“They recognize the growth and are here to offer their help in getting those 15 to 20 courts. They have a lot to offer,” Woodworth explained.
“The USTA is here today to make sure that you are aware of the tens-of-thousands and maybe even hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in savings available through them for projects just like this,” Woodworth added.
Darren Potkey, Executive Director USTA Georgia, told commissioners that the contribution his organization would be willing to make would be technical expertise.
“The USTA has an outstanding facility assistance program. If you went out and hired a contractor or someone off the street to do this for you‘d be looking at six-figures, easily,” Potkey told the Board.
“Also, obviously, there’s funds available for the actual construction.”
Gibbs explained that SPLOST VII funds available for the tennis court project would only cover constructing eight courts and not the fifteen to twenty mentioned by Woodworth.
“If USTA has any grant money we might look at a couple more (courts),” Gibbs said.
“What we will do when we build this is we will build it to where there’ll be a future for expansion,” Gibbs told Potkey, “to make sure we can add eight more courts.”
Commission chairman Dick Mecum agreed with the need to provide the tennis courts that were a part of the initial master plan for the park.
“The demographics in north Hall are changing. Tennis is going to become a much more popular sport,” Mecum said. “I think tennis courts are very much needed in north Hall County.”
Commissioners will vote Thursday evening as to whether or not to begin the process of actively pursuing the idea of building tennis courts at the North Hall Community Center and Park.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2016/4/386808/anyone-for-tennis-courts-that-is