Cathy Salustri
New Tennis and Pickleball Courts Open
The new tennis and pickleball courts in Gulfport are now open.
Public Works Director Tom Nicholls reported to city council at its March 7 meeting that the courts would be unveiled to the public the following morning, and they were.
“Staff did a great job early this week, Monday and Tuesday, getting the benches and everything ready to go,” he said. “The gates will be left open. There is a timer on the lights so they will go off at a reasonable hour.”
There are two new courts for tennis only and the other two are specifically for pickleball, to satisfy participants of both sports.
“We’ve gotten a lot of questions about that,” said Nicholls.
Setbacks at Scout Hall
Continuing his update to council on current projects, Nicholls mentioned the renovations at Scout Hall, which City Manager Jim O’Reilly previously said were far more involved than expected.
“Scout Hall has gone on for quite a while,” said Nicholls. “Every time we took a piece of wood off, there was something behind it that was bad.”
He added that this was all taken into consideration when figuring the original scope of work, so there have been no change orders to this point. Workers are starting to put the plywood back on the walls, and the original siding will go back up because it was still in decent shape. “Then we will replace the entire roof,” he said. “We anticipate that being about another month. We had to replace some beams in the ceiling.”
Beach Playground Almost Done
The new playground at the beach is primed for a soft opening in a couple of weeks. Nicholls said the previous playground lasted just over 10 years, but it was not covered. Having a covering over the new one should increase its time of use, he noted.
Nicholls said that during construction the city received a few comments from parents who walked by and said there were not enough pieces on the playground for toddler-age children. Because of that, the crew moved some pieces around to accommodate three additional ones: a small play structure resembling an ice cream shop, a smaller slide, and a “mommy-and-me” swing.
Nicholls said the new pieces will fit in nicely with the others.
“We’ll add these after the soft opening,” he said. “These will take about two months to get in.”
These additions required a change order in the amount of $23,000, approved by council at the same meeting. The money comes from the city’s coronavirus recovery funds. The city budgeted the overall playground at just under $350,000 with money from the same source.
“Who doesn’t love a new playground?” said Vice Mayor Christine Brown during the vote for the change order.
“We have some of the best playgrounds in the county,” Mayor Sam Henderson added.
Keep up with Gulfport City Council news and learn about upcoming meeting agendas.
