Do-overs have become frequent on the outdoor tennis courts at the Vancouver Tennis and Racquetball Center.
Cracks in the surface mean replaying points, and a plan discussed in April to cover the courts with a synthetic grass surface fell through.
It now appears that a solid plan is in place to rebuild the courts, maintaining the hard-court surface that stakeholders prefer.
The plan, according to facility manager Brent Waddle, is to do a complete rebuild of the four outdoor courts in the spring or summer of 2016. He said the project will result in four brand new courts.
That is good news for the tennis programs at Fort Vancouver High School and for adults who play competitive tennis.
Michele Rudi, co-president of the Vancouver Tennis Center Foundation, said that rebuilding the hard-court surface was always the preferred option because VTC members who play in leagues and tournaments compete on hard-court surfaces everywhere else. The same is true for the Fort Vancouver High School programs, according to first-year coach Corey Farr.
The cost of the project should range between $200,000 and $220,000 according to Waddle, who noted that factors such as the price of oil will impact the final price. He hopes to have formal bids in by the end of the year.
Funding for the project will come from a variety of sources.
According to Waddle, the city of Vancouver parks department will contribute at least $35,600 and perhaps twice that much depending upon the amount of grant money that can be secured for the project.
The non-profit Vancouver Tennis Center Foundation has pledged $55,000 for the project, and Rudi said she will seek grants from a variety of local sources including the Parks Foundation of Clark County and the Community Foundation of Southwest Washington. Rudi said she is also exploring the possibility of getting some 2016 grant money from the Pacific Northwest chapter of the United States Tennis Association.
Because the courts are on Vancouver Public Schools property next to Fort Vancouver High, Rudi said she hopes to work with the high school to secure grant money from the Foundation for Vancouver Schools. She noted that making the courts pickleball friendly will expand use of the courts for the high school and the community at large. Pickleball is played on badminton-sized courts with a plastic ball.
The Vancouver Tennis and Racquetball Center, at 5300 E. 18th St., is operated by the city of Vancouver parks department, which in the spring finalized a new 10-year agreement to lease the property from the school district. That agreement includes the option of extending the lease up to five additional years by mutual agreement.
As part of the new lease, the city of Vancouver agreed to have the outdoor courts resurfaced by Sept. 30, but that deadline was extended after plans fell through to top the courts with a synthetic grass product, according to Waddle.
The outdoor courts were resurfaced in the early 2000s, but the subsurface is original to the 40-year-old facility and also badly in need of repair according to Waddle.
Cost was the reason Waddle and the Foundation explored the option of putting a synthetic grass surface of the top of the cracking courts. But of the three bids submitted to do the work, only one included all of the required information, according to Waddle — and that bid was too expensive.
Funding that project also faced a shortfall when an application for a grant from the USTA was turned down.
The Fort Vancouver High boys tennis team used three of the four outdoor courts this season for practices and home matches. Farr, in his first year coaching the program, noted that Trappers home matches took much longer to play with only three of four courts available and with cracks forcing points to be replayed.
Farr called the situation “frustrating and embarrassing,” as well as a potential injury hazard.
He said that the synthetic grass alternative would not have been fair to his players because they would have been practicing on a different surface than the hard courts they compete on everywhere else. New hard courts will also put Fort Vancouver on even footing with other Vancouver Public Schools high schools, and could help Farr grow a program that this fall included 18 boys, more than double the 2014 participation.
In addition to rebuilding the courts from scratch, Rudi said the hope is that enough money is available to also replace the 40-year-old fencing around the courts.
