$20,000 grant for new tennis courts at Hippach awarded

FARMINGTON – The two aging tennis courts at Hippach Field will undergo a complete reconstruction next June thanks to a $20,000 federal Land and Water Conservation Program matching grant.

The grant, administered through the state’s Department of Conservation, Bureau of Parks and Land, will be matched with up to $25,000 held in a Farmington Recreation Department reserve account for the project, said Joe Nelson, assistant director of the Farmington Parks and Recreation. The well-used 32-year-old courts built in 1977, have showed extensive wear particularly during the last few years. Long cracks constantly formed across the surface which required frequent patching, said Nelson, who authored the grant’s application.

“They’ve been in desperate need of reconstruction for a sometime,” he said. Other town projects receiving the same type of grant funding over the years have included the park at Walton Mill Pond, the installation of the basketball courts at Hippach and the tennis courts were originally built with help from the same federal program money.

The town’s award was just one of five in the state which awarded a total of $132,000. Originally, 11 applications were competing for the federal grant award which funds community recreation projects. The project is estimated to total $40,000 and will go out to bid soon.

The reconstruction work is expected to take a month to complete and will begin once the Mt. Blue High School tennis teams complete their spring seasons in late May 2010. To complete the work, two sections of the tall chain-link fence around the courts will be removed so workers can access the courts to remove the failing surface, add a new base subsurface, pave over it, apply lines and replace the fence sections.

Nelson added the new playground and its plantings next to the courts will remain open and untouched through the month of work.

“It’s a big deal,” Nelson said of the grant award. “We’re all really happy.”