The group that looks after Rossland’s historic tennis courts is hoping to come up with a plan for rehabilitating them this year. While the courts remain in use, society treasurer Sam Ross says their infrastructure is failing.
“It’s built on concrete cribwork that we think is from the 1950s or ’60s but we’re not sure,” he says. “It’s essentially a square piece of concrete cast over rebar. In a lot of places it’s just rebar that’s left. The concrete’s fallen off. The walls are starting to bulge and fail.”
The first step in addressing the issue is having an engineering company take a look.
“It’s all retaining, it’s all holding back weight. So it has to be engineered. That’s what we’re trying to assess right now. Once they do that, we will have a plan on how to proceed.”
The assessment was originally supposed to happen last July, but got postponed until October. Determining the stability of the soil underneath the courts will require holes to be cut in the court and then patched. But the society worried the patches might not happen before snowfall, so the work was postponed.
There have been courts on the site on Leroi Avenue since at least 1910.
“They’ve changed over the years, of course, but they’ve been there a long time and are in use quite a bit,” Ross says.
He says there has been a surge in tennis’ popularity following Canada’s success on the world stage, including the Davis Cup and other competitions. As a result, they are seeing more kids playing tennis with their families.
Ross says the tennis society is among the few volunteer groups in town that actually maintains a city-owned facility. While there are drop-in fees and voluntary memberships, the city provides most of their funding and grants are sought for specific projects.
The society recently appeared before city council where Ross says they were asked how much use the courts get.
“All the recreation facilities need some kind of repair and I think they want to rank them based on use, but since they’re public courts, we don’t really track it that well. We just open them up and people play tennis.”
Ross says they were also asked about whether the courts could be used for pickleball, which is growing in popularity. Ross says they support pickleball, which is a similar outdoor racquet sport, although played on a smaller court and tends to appeal to an older demographic.
But it will require some planning to make pickleball viable, as Ross says the court can’t simply be converted for that use.
While the courts typically open in late April, Ross says they’re not sure about this year, as snow remains on the ground, but they have been shoveling for an earlier opening.
