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City cites Placer AI data to target park upkeep, seeks grants to replace tennis/pickleball restrooms
Summary
Parks staff presented Placer AI visitation data showing heavy use of ballfields, soccer complex and courts and said the city will pursue grants and other funding—including a possible T‑Mobile community grant and Cherokee Nation capital request—to replace an aging restroom/concession building by the tennis and pickleball courts.
Parks staff reported new visitation data from Placer AI showing tens of thousands of visits to city park facilities and said the city will pursue grants to replace an aging restroom and utility building at the tennis and pickleball complex.
At a council meeting parks staff summarized the first round of Placer AI reports and the city’s initial findings. The staff said the Edwards Soccer Complex logged about 35,100 unique visits in 2024, while the city’s baseball and softball fields recorded roughly 63,400 visits between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30, 2024. Staff also reported about 9,100 visits to tennis courts between March 1 and May 18, 2024, with 2,900 unique visitors in that window averaging about 3.15 visits each and an average dwelling time of about one hour and 15 minutes.
“Placer does use phone data whether you’ve got an Android or an Apple…we can tell things like how many people were in an area at a given time,” a parks staff member said, describing the tool’s metrics for unique versus repeat visits.
Why it matters: staff told the council the visitation metrics can guide where upkeep and capital investments should be prioritized, and can reveal opportunities to capture tourism and local spending tied to tournaments and regular play.
Staff outlined a specific capital request for the tennis/pickleball restroom building. The packet included sample plans for a replacement building with ADA‑compliant restrooms (men’s and women’s), storage space used by the school, a mechanical/ electrical closet (the lights and wiring for the complex are housed in that structure), and space that could support a small, locally run concession. An engineer estimate cited by staff put site/building construction at about $165,000, with roughly $50,000 in additional mechanical and electrical work, for a combined request “just a little over” $200,000.
Staff said they have collected letters of support from the local school and Larimore Family Farms and have reached out to Grand Gateway and Cherokee Nation for potential capital grants. Staff noted the T‑Mobile community grant typically provides about $55,000 and requires a local match; they said the city would apply but acknowledged it is competitive.
Council and staff discussed other park findings: FreedomFest attendance was reported as under 10,000 overall, with an example daily green‑space count of about 4,800 for a Saturday. Staff cautioned that Placer AI only counts devices with location‑enabled apps and thus undercounts children and people without phones.
No formal action was taken. Staff said they will continue pursuing grant opportunities, gathering additional letters of community support and refining engineers’ cost estimates before returning to the council.
