City eyes new tennis courts, playground equipment

A number of Whitefish city parks are going to be a flurry of activity this summer as upgrades are made to aging and deteriorating facilities.

About $410,000 in resort tax funds are set to be sent on improvements at parks and much of that work is set to be done this summer.

Parks and Recreation Director Maria Butts said it’s exciting to have so many projects happening.

“A lot of the work we’ve done in the last few years has been catch up and maintenance,” Butts said. “The parks staff is excited to see these changes.”

Major projects are planned for Riverside Park, Memorial Park, Mountain Trails Park and Armory Park.

Butts noted that former parks director Karl Cozad had been saving resort tax funds for years to pay for upgrades and it was one of the first projects she began working on after taking over leadership of the department about a year ago.

The parks improvements are included in the city’s preliminary budget for fiscal year 2016.

One of the biggest projects is at Memorial Park.

The tennis courts at the park are being converted into four pickleball courts at cost of $80,000. Construction work is ongoing and is expected to be completed in mid-July.

“Pickleball is one of the fastest growing areas of recreation, especially among older adults,” Butts said. “People are looking for pickleball courts when they look at places to vacation. We also have a group of pickleball players that have created private courts in town.”

The game of pickleball while similar to tennis, is played on a smaller court, and combined elements of badminton and table tennis to the game. Each player has a paddle and attempts to hit a plastic ball over a net.

Butts said she was initially approached about painting lines for pickleball on the city’s existing tennis courts. However, the parks and recreation board decided to take the two courts at Memorial Park and convert them because that court was only getting minimal use for tennis.

Butts said after planning for the pickleball courts, the parks board began to realize that other aspects of the park needed attention too.

The Glacier Twins baseball team also has plans for improvements to Memorial Stadium and the city wanted to match that.

“Memorial Park has been neglected and we’d love to see that space revitalized,” she said.

The buildings and fencing around the baseball field near the corner of Pine Avenue and East Fourth Street will be removed to be opened up for more green space.

“We’ll leave the ball field, but we want to open up and clean up the area,” she said.

A new playground, set to cost $60,000, will be constructed at Memorial Park. The playground will have a number of features, including a kids zip line and climbing wall, swings and a multi-seat handicap accessible seesaw. Work will take place throughout the summer with completion expected by fall.

The basketball court will also be resurfaced this summer including adding new hoops.

The tennis courts at Riverside Park will be reconstructed at a cost of $120,000. The project will go out to bid with the goal of having the work completed by the end of summer. The courts have been in disrepair for several years with cracking and heaving of the surface.

Whitefish High School’s tennis team use courts at Riverside and Grouse Mountain for practice and tournaments. The park board made the decision to convert the courts at Memorial Park to pickleball, in part, because the courts there were too small for use by the high school teams, Butts noted.

“We could have added tennis courts at Memorial, but it was more expensive to build new courts than replace the ones at Riverside,” Butts said. “The ground at Riverside isn’t ideal for construction, but people using the courts prefer the quiet and more park-like setting at Riverside.”

Butts said reconstruction of the tennis courts will include greater compaction of the soil underneath and include in the bid will be an alternative to do post-tensioned concrete, which is preferred for courts on unstable soils.

Properly maintained, Butts said, the new courts should have a 15- to 20-year life span.

New lacrosse fields will be constructed at Armory Park. Two of the four softball fields will be converted into two irrigated lacrosse fields.

Previously the lacrosse teams have practiced at Grouse Mountain fields, but the lacrosse and soccer teams have played on the fields back-to-back. Both put different wear and tear on the fields making it a challenge, Butts said.

“Lacrosse has seen significant growth in this area,” Butts said. “We wanted to improve the Grouse fields for soccer, but we didn’t want to displace lacrosse.”

A parking lot will also be added. This is necessary for the lacrosse fields, but also to create parking for the annual Whitefish Ski Joring World Championships in January.

“We really wanted to figure out a way to meet everybody’s needs,” Butts said. “Lacrosse needed more parking and ski joring was parking on the fields at a time when the ground is soft creating ruts in the field.”

Mountain Trails Park will see the installation of a new playground. The design hasn’t been finalized yet, so work there could be pushed back to next summer.

Butts said the playground was removed from the park to make way for the covered ice rink at Stumptown Ice Den, but the deed for the property requires a playground.

“That is a high priority for us to get the playground back in,” Butts said.