(image from Southampton Tennis Club June 10 presentation)
The Southampton Tennis Club needs to rebuild some of its courts and is looking to the Town of Saugeen Shores to help pay for it.
The tennis club’s board chair Dave Stevens and others spoke to councillors at Monday’s meeting and asked the town to foot half the bill — or $175,000 — for an overhaul of some cracked courts and new fencing.
The Southampton Tennis Club is a 15-court outdoor facility with a membership base of around 1,500 people. The nets are up eight months a year, and the club offers lessons to kids and adults during the summer months.
Stevens told councillors the five courts at Lake Street are at the hub of the club’s activities, and three of them have cracks that can’t be feasibly repaired. And he says the entire facility needs its fencing modernized.
He says the plan is to completely dig up three of the five courts at Lake Street, assess and replace the base and then rebuild the courts with asphalt. The other two courts would be patched and repaired, before all five are top-coated with green and blue acrylic paint.
“Courts are generally resurfaced every 10 years. And a complete rebuild as we’re proposing is a generational expense,” Stevens says. “The club alone has largely funded the court repair and resurfacing over the years, as well as maintained the infrastructure around the club and the property.”
The tennis club will also be relying on membership donations, grants and corporate contributions to finance the Lake Street courts project. Councillors heard a fundraising drive that kicked off last month has already raised around $20,000.
Saugeen Shores Vice Deputy Mayor Mike Myatt says he looks forward to discussing the financial request from the town during budget deliberations in the fall.
“I think you’ve got a great organization. I commend you for all the work you do,” Myatt says. “And I look forward to considering that ($175,000) when it comes around to budget time.”
And Coun. John Divinski already confirmed his intent to support the ask.
“It’s certainly a service to the community. And, unfortunately if we don’t fix these courts as they become in need of repairs, one day they just won’t be there,” Divinski says. “And that would be a shame … I will be supporting the $175,000 ask when it comes up at budget time.”
