Joey Payeur
The Genie Bouchard and Milos Raonic wanna-bes here will have to hold their horses—and their serves—until the spring.
Work continued this week on the multi-use tennis court facility being built on the fenceline separating Fort Frances High School and St. Francis School.
But Jason Kabel, the town’s manager of community services, confirmed Monday the courts won’t be ready for public use this fall.
“We originally hoped to have them completed in September, knowing that we would have a short window of playability before it gets too cold,” he noted.
“The biggest hold-up was that the fencing contractor we had from Winnipeg backed out so we had to scramble to find a new contractor,” Kabel added.
“[And] the multi-use tennis court committee had to change its perspective about being able to play this year at that point.
“Those of us that play tennis are deeply disappointed . . . I play in [International] Falls and I was wanting to play in Fort Frances this year,” he said.
Kabel confirmed the new contractor will break ground this coming Monday to put up the perimeter fencing around the courts.
Holes also will be dug for the light posts, which then will be installed.
The process should take about a week, with the final pre-snowfall job to consist of putting a layer of asphalt treatment on top of the gravel currently present at the site.
“We don’t want to put the finishing surface on until the spring so that it doesn’t winter needlessly,” Kabel explained.
The final layer will be applied once the ground thaws and the weather is deemed warm enough.
“It should take one week to do that and then the surface should be playable,” said Kabel, who touched on what he believed will be the usage demographic of the courts in its first weeks of operation.
“Much of the daytime use will be from the public and Catholic school boards, who are part of the joint-use agreement,” he noted.
“There’s also a rapidly-growing pickleball group in town that will outweigh the tennis group early on.
“The goal is to get more and more people active,” Kabel remarked.
Kabel said discussions already have begun between members of the committee with their tennis counterparts in Kenora and Dryden surrounding the eventual hosting of a tournament here possibly as soon as next year.
