Oak Hills advances tennis RFP, schedules tournaments and flags structural court repair needs

Oak Hills Park Authority members heard updates on tennis operations, an upcoming RFP for tennis services, scheduled tournaments and a structural repair need for a court wall that is eroding toward a fairway.

Denise Brown, who leads tennis-related efforts on the authority, said the tennis RFP to procure vendor/professional services is "just about ready to be finalized" and that the document will likely be released in early September. She said the city purchasing office maintains vendor lists and will distribute the RFP; members also discussed broader outreach to industry contacts to increase responses.

Tournaments and programming
Denise described two upcoming events: a Labor Day drop-in doubles tournament and the Arthur Globelat tournament set for Sept. 19. Local organizers and the volunteer group Friends of Tennis are coordinating player outreach and promotions via email blasts and the Oak Hills website.

Court repairs and safety
Jim Schell reported structural erosion at one court (identified in the discussion as Court 8) that is eroding toward the fairway near Hole 11 and said the court "absolutely needs to be done because it's eroding down to the fairway on 11." Schell said a rough estimate had been obtained; Denise summarized vendor pricing context for repair quotes, saying the firm Oval Tennis provided a quote that was about $2,000 higher than another vendor (Davis) and that "it's probably about actually 5,500 something around there," making Oval the preferred but more expensive option because of its specialization.

Friends of Tennis funding
A brief discussion noted that some authority members did not believe donation money from Friends of Tennis should be used for structural repairs that are essentially capital infrastructure. One member said such repairs are the authority's responsibility rather than a donors' expense.

Why this matters
The tennis program at Oak Hills houses public courts, regular clinics and tournaments; structural court failure and erosion adjacent to playing areas pose both safety and liability risks and can affect play and adjacent golf operations. The RFP release will determine a pool of vendors and professionals to run future programming and court maintenance.

Ending
Staff will finalize the RFP distribution list with city purchasing, circulate tournament publicity, and return with firm contractor estimates for the court structural repair for capital-planning consideration.