Longboat Key Tennis Center courts updated

For the coming fall season, courts 4, 5, 6 at the Longboat Key Tennis Center will have new lines and better drainage, but by the end of summer 2021, they'll undergo full overhauls.

The tennis center recently had some light maintenance done on three of its courts in order to hold them over. That will be the same work that was done last summer on courts 1-3 and is necessary to rebuild an old watering system that is about 20 years old, said tennis center manager Kay Thayer. The watering system for the clay courts doesn’t work properly and playing on dry clay can get dangerous, Thayer said. 

The courts will be worked on in the summer, of course, when the tennis center business slows to a crawl like most other places on the island. It’s difficult to do substantive work when the courts are full most of the day. 

“A lot of times they don’t get the maintenance they do need because we are so busy we don’t have time to get on them and do the extras that other facilities can do,” Thayer said. “They really take a beating in the season.”

By February or March, the tennis center will be courting possible companies to complete the work. The project is about $150,000 and is spaced out from the previous work to allow the budget to breathe, rather than have back-to-back expensive projects. Courts 1-3 were the worst off, and Thayer said they knew they could hold off on 4-6. 

The tennis center has 11 courts.

“It’s quite an endeavor,” Thayer said. “We have to plan a lot more ahead for that than the work we did a couple weeks ago.”