By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
The new tennis courts at City Park will employ a key card entry system that the Salisbury Parks and Recreation Department hopes will protect the city’s $300,000 investment and provide valuable user information.
Salisbury officials will rededicate the six-court complex at 10 a.m. Saturday, and the first players should be able to be serving and lobbing by lunchtime.
The public is invited to the dedication.
“This will make a real positive impact in the whole recreational program,” said Reid Leonard, who had to move with his regular playing partners to the Salisbury High courts over the past nine months.
“It will be great to come home.”
The City Park courts were first constructed in the late 1950s.
The playing area at the completely new courts is wider ó up to U.S. Tennis Association standards. It will help the city keep and attract more USTA-sanctioned tournaments.
The lighting and fencing are new, and the drainage is better. The Plexipave surface, which has a medium coarseness, dries out quickly and provides good traction for players.
Salisbury Pediatric Associates donated extensive landscaping and benches in memory of Dr. Joseph Corpening, a tennis enthusiast who played on the City Park courts for decades.
The key card system ó not unlike the use of library cards ó opens magnetized gates at the swipe of a card and keeps a record of who is using the courts and when the heaviest hours of use are.
The key cards probably will have a side benefit of keeping skateboarders and vandals off the playing surfaces.
Tennis players planning to use the new courts should visit the City Park Center on Lake Drive to fill out some paperwork and pick up their cards. For city residents, there is no charge for a card; for people outside the city, a card costs $5.
There is a $5 charge for replacement cards.
The trip to City Park Center is only needed that one time. A player can keep the issued card in his wallet, attach it to a lanyard and hang it around his neck or throw it in his tennis bag. The card only has to come out to enter the courts.
To exit, a player simply pushes a button for the gates to open.
The gates can be set to remain open as little as two seconds or as long as two days, which is convenient for tournaments.
Each swipe of a card identifies the user and the time he enters the court.
The key card system represents a pilot program for Salisbury Parks and Recreation.
Elaney Hasselmann, marketing and community relations manager for the department, said possible future park facilities such as a dog park, skatepark or disc golf course might be able to employ the same kind of entry system.
Data collected from the key cards also are important in accreditations and evaluations for the Parks and Recreation staff, she said.
Leonard, an avid player and member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, has been issued the first card. For several years, he quietly lobbied Salisbury officials for new courts.
“It was his keeping that bug in their ears,” Hasselmann said.
Leonard routinely kept a watch on the construction progress.
“I did my best not to be a sidewalk superintendent,” he said. “… (But) there are a few things you catch.”
The Parks and Recreation staff benefited from having Maintenance Manager Stephen Brown, a licensed landscape architect and contractor, on its staff to oversee the progress.
The old courts had a 3.5-inch thickness of gravel topped by 2.5 inches of asphalt. The new courts incorporate a drainage system with a geo-textile fabric, 7 inches of stone and 3.5 inches of asphalt.
The Plexipave surface consists of four other layers.
The USTA requires (or prefers) at least 12 feet of space from the outside sideline on the court to the fence. The old City Park courts only had 8 feet between the sidelines and the fences.
The new courts added 6 feet of space on one side and 2 feet on the other to provide the 12-foot outside spaces preferred for USTA sanctioned events. The courts already had the 21-foot depth needed from the end lines to the back fences.
Carolina Siteworks Inc. of China Grove served as the general contractor. Periods of foul weather proved to be the biggest hurdles in the project.
“It turned out nice, and we’re real happy with it,” said Darrell Shell of Carolina Siteworks.
Lights at the courts will stay on until 10 p.m.
Salisbury has 10 city-owned courts ó the six at City Park and four at the Civic Center, which includes the only hydro-clay public courts in the state. Those courts are available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
A garden marker will be installed in Dr. Corpening’s memory and unveiled by his family as part of Saturday morning’s “grand re-opening.”
City Park courts are the home for the Kiwanis Junior Open, a USTA tournament scheduled for June 19-21.
The event includes junior singles and doubles tennis for boys and girls 18 and under, 16 and under, 12 and under and 10 and under. Registration begins April 27.For more information on the Kiwanis Junior tournament or the new courts in general, contact Paul Moore, recreation coordinator at City Park Center at 704-638-5295, or at pmoor@salisburync.gov.