The current state of the tennis courts in Foley is so hazardous that the Foley High School tennis team was forced to finish their season in Gulf Shores.

Jessica Vaughn

The tennis courts in Cedar Street Park may soon be under construction, as a plan was brought before the Foley council on Monday, May 1, concerning the complete rebuilding of the courts. The reconstruction of the courts comes as a response to an incident that happened at a previous council meeting last year.

“We had a person come talk to us about the condition of our tennis courts back in November,” David Thompson, Foley’s Recreation Director, said during his presentation at council. “We have four courts that were probably constructed in the early ‘80s or maybe even the late ‘70s. They’ve been around for a long, long time, but they’ve begun to show signs of significant cracking.”

The City of Foley has attempted to patch the courts twice within the last seven years, to no avail. The patches are not holding, which prompted the Recreation Department to begin moving forward and considering what options were available.

Another deciding factor came this year when the Foley High School tennis team had to move games to Gulf Shores to complete their season. They hope to be back on their home court by next year if the project is able to begin in adequate time.

David Thompson continued to explain what would need to be done to provide safe and usable courts to the citizens of Foley and neighboring towns.

“The base itself is satisfactory for doing what we need it to do, however there are poor soil conditions under that,” Thompson said. “The ultimate findings of the soil test were that the asphalt itself had just worn out.”

Due to these conditions, Thompson, along with the Engineering Department of Foley, concluded that the best course of action would be to completely remove the old courts and start fresh.

“The recommendations are to raise the court at least six inches or more if possible. Also there is a concern that as we demolish the existing asphalt we don’t do anything that would affect the soil underneath, the good base that we have,” Thompson said. “The recommended next steps are to replace the existing four courts to provide up to six playable courts, hopefully by next year, and then long term planning is to build two additional courts to bring the total to eight, as well as adding a men’s and women’s bathroom that could be shared both with the basketball players and the tennis players.”

Currently, the players have to use the bathrooms over at the baseball fields, which is quite a walk for them.

When asked if repairing the courts would be enough, Thompson responded to the negative.

“Recreation had a meeting with public works and engineering, and everybody concluded that we needed to demo the asphalt. We did have an option that proposed keeping it in place, but it’s not consistent. There’s a lot of cracking in it, there’s even a little bit of concrete, there’s a mix of everything. So we definitely need to demolish the asphalt and get it out of there.”

To push this point further, the estimated price for the first option, which would involve building the asphalt up twelve inches and then adding six more inches of crushed aggregate on top, turned out to be costlier than the second option, which involved the Foley Public Works Department coming in and excavating the asphalt themselves. Also, the first option only took into consideration the repairing of the four existing courts, and didn’t include the two additional courts Thompson hopes to create this year.

“It’s estimated that it’d be about two weeks’ worth of materials needed, and we’d probably have to rent some equipment to do that, but overall we’re still going to be saving,” Thompson told the council. “And that’s in addition to getting the bad base out.”

Everything was factored into the cost prior to the presentation, from the hauling away of the bad material to the renting of the equipment.

The only other option available consisted of putting new concrete directly on top of the existing asphalt, but that option was vetoed out early in the planning as the team believed that it was very important to demolish the bad asphalt and to raise it higher to help the courts stay in working order for years to come.

“Whatever we invest in, we want to invest for the long term,” David Thompson said. “We don’t want to come back in six years and say that we need more money.”

Along with the recreation of the courts, a new light system may be making its way to the parks as well. Currently, spot lights are in the middle of the courts. As the team will already be demolishing the courts and thus removing the current lighting, they’re discussing replacing the low-level lighting with courtside lighting and LED bulbs.

The council pointed out that Thompson’s plan is currently in two phases. Phase one will be the demolition of the current courts, and the rebuilding of the four courts into new, upgraded courts. Phase two will involve the addition of more courts, as well as the possible addition of a men’s and women’s bathroom. While the council is hopeful to complete phase one by next year, phase two is being taken into consideration as a possible project for 2019.

All the council agreed that while their idea was to originally go in and repair the courts, not replace them, that is no longer an option as the asphalt has become worn out.

“We tried to repair the courts and it didn’t last five, six years, it lasted two,” councilman Ralph Hellmich said once it was agreed to make the tennis court replacement a capital project for the upcoming year. “Basically when asphalt dries out, it’s gone. I don’t care what kind of cap you put over it, it’s too far gone. I think we have to do something about it.”

Timing is also an issue, as tennis begins in January. The council hopes to begin demolition later in the year, and for the reconstruction to begin first thing in 2018. They’re looking to have the courts repaired in time for the high school to have their tournaments on their home territory.

“If it looks like we’re going to be able to pull it off budget-wise, then we should pull the trigger on the demolition prior to the end of our fiscal year,” council President Wayne Trawick said.

In their current conditions, the courts are not safe to be used, and some of the cracks have spread to the point where players are in danger of harming themselves should their foot get caught. The council is eager to have demolition begin as soon as possible.

One of the main issues preventing the council from beginning immediately is water getting into the material. Even in its current state, the asphalt on the courts is helping to shed water away, but once it is removed, then water will have access to get into the material before the new asphalt can be laid. David Thompson worried about doing the demo work too far in advance of the actual finish work.

Whenever the demolition begins, the council members are all enthusiastic about setting this as a capital project for next year, and are aiming to begin the demolition later this year. They hope to get at least four good courts for the high schoolers and players come next season, and look forward to expanding and providing eight full courts and the possible addition of restrooms within the next few years.