BERLIN – In spite of complications, town leaders are hoping to see the tennis courts at Stephen Decatur Park replaced early next year.
After the realization that installing new courts would be a bigger project than anticipated, the town sought advice from the U.S. Tennis Association. The national organization provided Berlin’s engineers with several options to pursue.
“The engineers are looking at those options, the stormwater considerations and different aspects of it,” said Mary Bohlen, the town’s administrative services director. “They’re going to come back with recommendations.”
In 2014, the town received a Community Parks and Playgrounds grant from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The $215,000 grant was meant to allow the town to replace the decades-old tennis courts at Stephen Decatur Park.
Though officials thought the project would be done in early 2016, work was delayed when engineers discovered the true condition of the courts. Engineers discovered a thick layer of asphalt underneath the courts.
“We had been thinking we’d completely remove the existing surface and start over,” Bohlen said. “Once the engineers did testing, they discovered the asphalt was so thick costs would go up astronomically.”
Since then the town has been working with the U.S. Tennis Association to come up with alternatives. Bohlen said some of those were simply temporary fixes that wouldn’t last too long while others were complete replacements. She’s hoping engineers come up with a recommendation on how to proceed by the end of the calendar year. That way, the project can be bid in the first part of 2016 and be completed once weather allows.
In the meantime, the Berlin Town Council voted to approve spending $91,489 on LED lighting for the new courts on Monday. The lighting will be stored by the town’s electric department until the new courts are in place and it can be installed.
According to Tim Lawrence, the town’s electric utility director, the price of the lights goes up 3 percent after Jan. 1. He recommended ordering them now since they’d be needed early in 2017 anyway.
When asked how the lights would operate, Lawrence explained that they’d be able to be turned on during a set period each day.
“It has a control system where you can set it up to run from a certain time at night, say 5 until 10,” he said. “It can be set up to run during that time period but where you have to push a button to reset it every hour. That way you’re not sitting there wasting electricity. It’s a very sophisticated system.”
He said the lights the town was purchasing, which are made by Musco Sports Lighting LLC, are the same type used by the Naval Academy, Stevenson University, Towson University and a number of other places.
“This is one of the leading sports lighting systems…,” Lawrence said. “When this is completed the lighting system is rated to have pro tennis matches.”
