City to "Fix" Memorial Park Tennis Courts

Recently the City of El Paso finished re-doing the tennis courts at Memorial Park. The courts were in desperate need of repair. Unfortunately, the work done on them was sub-standard and frequent tennis players began to complain about the poor quality of the courts. Now the City is fixing the situation. In an email to Neighborhood Association Presidents, Representative Susie Byrd wrote:

Please share [message from Alan Shubert, City Engineer below] with your association. This project was mismanaged and not built appropriately. The City is fixing. They are also correcting for the mismanagement to make sure it does not happen again.

Also, I’ve received some complaints from neighbors in the immediate vicinity about the fact that people can turn on the lights and that some folks are staying out there past the time the park closes. We are fixing that too. There will be a timer that shuts down the lights at 10pm.

Susie

Here is Alan Shubert's email message to Debbie Hamlyn, Assistant City Manager, regarding the Memorial Park tennis courts:

The Engineering and Construction Management Dept. and the Parks and Recreation Dept. have been working since early November on issues that have arisen with the installation of the new tennis courts at Memorial park. In the time since we were advised about the problems with the court construction we met with independent professional engineers, contractors and suppliers to investigate what alternatives were available to resolve the problems. They made several suggestions which we took into consideration in deciding on the best approach. Subsequently, we looked for procurement options to allow us to hire a contractor in a timely manner.

The tennis courts will be overlaid with 2” of HMAC (Hot Mix Asphaltic Concrete), separated from the concrete and expansion joints with a geotextile fabric. We have chosen Hellas, a nationally experienced firm in the construction and re-construction of tennis courts to perform the work. They have built many successful projects in the City of El Paso for EPISD, YIST, Ft. Bliss, and recently competed one at Clint. They are scheduled to begin work in early January. The duration required for the work is 8 weeks. The first two to three weeks will involve the placement and compaction of the asphalt. A four week period of no activity is necessary, to allow volatile gases in the asphalt to evaporate so they can come back in and place the acrylic and color layers. Play will be allowed to resume in early March.

I apologize for the delay, but the logistics have been difficult to work out with the holiday and the end of the year approaching. I will be happy to meet with each of you to discuss further if you desire. Please forward this to anyone else who might be interested

R. Alan Shubert, P.E., City Engineer