Charles City receives grant to repair, improve pickleball courts

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

The city of Charles City has received a $20,000 grant to improve and update the community’s pickleball courts, located at Sportsman’s Park.

Parks and Recreation Director Tyler Mitchell told the Parks and Rec committee Wednesday that the grant comes from MinnTex Citrus, based in Monticello. The committee approved the grant application in February.

“The courts are going to have eight feet of distance from the sidelines and end lines to the fence, when currently we have four feet,” Mitchell said. “We’ll also make it four inches of asphalt, instead of two inches, and we will fill in the cracks.”

The grant will resurface and expand the current courts, which are in “rough shape” with several cracks, Mitchell said.

As part of the grant, the courts will be expanded to regulation size and be eligible to host sanctioned tournaments. The black top surface will be widened by a total of 16 feet.

Mitchell has received an estimate for the work from Heartland Asphalt, which comes to $36,500. The grant would cut the city’s cost to $16,500, which will be paid through the one-day borrowing fund. The Charles City Council approved that payment at Monday’s meeting.

Mitchell said he expects the work on the courts to begin very soon.

Pickleball combines elements of tennis, badminton, table tennis, racquetball, with a perforated polymer ball and solid paddles. The game is played on a court similar to tennis, but smaller (20-by-44 feet).

Seven feet from each side of the net are “no-volley zones” where players may only return shots after a bounce. The rest of the court is divided in halves by service lines.

The monthly Parks and Rec meeting was held at the clubhouse in Wildwood Park — in person for the first time since the COVID pandemic forced public meetings online more than a year ago.

In other business at the meeting Wednesday, Mitchell told the committee that there have been enough workers hired for the swimming pool to be open this year.

“I had been a little worried about that, but we do have enough,” Mitchell said.

The city’s swimming pool never opened last summer, due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, which put up too many hurdles for the pool to overcome.

Mitchell said full-time and part-time workers are hired, including lifeguards, cashiers and enough people to teach swimming lessons.

He said he is currently in the process of fixing up the pool and sealing all the cracks and work is in progress. The pool will be filled 2-3 weeks before it opens at the end of May.