By Donald Wittkowski
Over the years, there has been a lot of racket back and forth between Ocean City’s tennis players and pickleball players.
The tennis players wanted to protect their turf, while the pickleball players were eager to get their own permanent courts in town.
Finally, after years of searching for the right location, the city is on the verge of awarding a construction contract that will give the pickleball players what they want and also includes some perks for the tennis community.
City Council is expected at its 7 p.m. meeting Tuesday to award a $593,700 contract to build the new pickleball courts and also resurface some existing tennis courts with new artificial turf. The meeting has been shifted from Council’s usual Thursday night meeting schedule.
A compromise between the tennis and pickleball communities, brokered in September by Michael Allegretto, the city’s director of Community Services, ended the long-running saga.
Mayor Jay Gillian had assigned Allegretto the task of solving the pickleball dilemma in hopes of “finally putting it all to rest.” Allegretto reported to Council in September that both sides now seem in agreement over where to build the pickleball courts.
The construction plan calls for converting three existing artificial-turf tennis courts at 18th Street and Haven Avenue, next to the Ocean City Intermediate School, into 12 pickleball courts that will have an asphalt playing surface.
This will give pickleball players their first permanent outdoor location and provide enough courts to accommodate the fast-growing sport.
Popular with senior citizens, pickleball is played with paddles and a small ball over a net. It combines elements of tennis, ping-pong and badminton.
Ocean City’s tennis players had feared they would lose some of their turf courts to accommodate pickleball, but the compromise has something for them, too.
Although three of the tennis courts at 18th Street and Haven Avenue will be reconfigured for pickleball, three other turf courts there will remain exclusively for tennis. Those three tennis courts will be resurfaced with new artificial turf as part of the construction contract that is expected to be awarded Tuesday.
In addition, four existing asphalt tennis courts at 34th Street will be converted into an artificial-turf playing surface.
Allegretto said the total number of artificial-turf tennis courts in town will increase from 11 to 12.
Artificial turf, a carpet-like surface, is favored by some tennis players, particularly older ones, because it puts less stress on knees and other joints than asphalt courts.
The final part of the compromise plan calls for leaving five existing turf courts at Sixth Street for tennis. Five existing asphalt courts at Sixth Street will also remain for tennis, Allegretto said.
In December 2015, the city abandoned plans to convert a public parking lot at Shelter Road and Tennessee Avenue into new pickleball courts.
After some searching and discussion, the city’s recreation complex at 18
th Street and Haven Avenue next to the Intermediate School emerged as the choice for pickleball. There are some concerns, however, that the new pickleball courts will create excessive noise and add to parking problems at the site.
While speaking to Council in September, Gillian said the city may consider planting trees around the courts as a way to muffle the noise.
The city intends to talk to the Board of Education about the possibility of using a school-owned athletic field at 18th Street for parking, Gillian and Allegretto said.
