Old Moroni tennis courts transformed for pickleball

By Suzanne Dean 

Publisher

8/26/2020

MORONI—Volunteers and Moroni City public works staff have transformed deteriorated tennis courts into three pickleball courts.

“We made a nice, usable facility out of something that was an eyesore,” said Councilman Bevan Wulfenstein, who coordinated the project on behalf of the city council.

The goal of the project, which is not yet complete, was to rehabilitate tennis courts on the north end of a city park near Main Street and 300 West.

The fence along the west side of two of the courts was not well anchored so when the wind blew, it flapped back and forth, Wulfenstein said. When it did, the concrete at the base of the fence cracked. Volunteers took out the fence, built a retaining wall and installed a new, shorter fence on top of the wall.

Along the north side of the court, the side facing Main Street, three poles in the fence had worked loose. Volunteers created some metal plates, anchored them to the concrete base and welded the poles to the plates.

The east and south fences were okay and didn’t require any repairs, Wulfenstein said.

At that point, city crews ground up the concrete under old tennis courts, used the ground concrete as a subsurface and put a finish material on top designed for racketball and pickleball courts.

The next step will be to improve the tennis courts behind the new pickleball courts. Those will continue as tennis courts.

Mayor Paul Bailey, his father Dave Bailey and “many, many other people” put in many hours on the project, Wulfenstein said.

According to the mayor, the city spent about $15,000 for materials only. The mayor told the city council that over the past few weekends, there have been times when all three courts were in use. “It’s money well spent,” he said.