Renovations at the Hite B. Wolcott Park are scheduled to be completed by October.
The projects include building an additional parking lot and the resurfacing of six tennis courts at the Ridgeland Tennis center.
“We’ve needed these renovations for 12, 15 years,” says Director of Parks and Recreation John North. “We have so many grandparents and children who come to the park to watch and play sports. This parking lot is going to keep people from parking on McClellan Drive.”
This new parking lot will be located at the western most corner of the park, behind the baseball fields down McClellan drive. The project is estimated to cost $1.1 million. The funds for the parking lot come from general obligation bonds issued in May of 2019.
This will be the third parking lot in the park, and provides around 50 new spaces. The area behind the baseball field has already been flattened out, and the concrete curbs have been installed around the perimeter. In the following weeks the asphalt should be laid.
“We were thinking this thing would be done in early August but the weather pushed us back. We are about 40 days behind schedule, but with this good weather coming, I think it should be done by the end of September, or early October,” said North.
The second renovation, the resurfacing of the tennis courts, is expected to be completed around the same time. ‘These courts are being used, I would say, 350 out of 365 days per year,” North said. “It is time to resurface the tennis courts.”
The Ridgeland Tennis Center features 17 courts. The courts being resurfaced are courts 7-12, the innermost courts. The renovations are being funded by reallocated money from the cancellation of Kid’s Fest and Balloon Glow, which provided $43,000 for the projects.
