Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 12
City Won’t Stripe All Courts for Pickleball • Old Town Parking Philosophy Stays in Place • Trustees Earn Extra Credit for Training • Latest Valley Ranch Plan Met With Disdain
Because today is not only Mother’s Day but also the 22nd anniversary of our wedding, I gave my wife/muse/editor the day off. Any typos you may find in this edition are solely my responsibility.
City Won’t Stripe All Courts for Pickleball
Despite all of the pickleball pontificating that’s happened in Coppell recently, the city’s staff isn’t ready to give up on courts exclusively devoted to tennis.
Pickleball proponents pleaded for additional courts and more access to the existing courts during the April 1 meeting of the Coppell Parks and Recreation Board and the April 9 meeting of the Coppell City Council. One of their requests was painting pickleball lines on all of the courts at the Wagon Wheel Tennis and Pickleball Center.
“Just paint more lines — if for no other reason, optionality,” Stephen Harris told the council. “Paint more lines on the tennis courts, and apparently, it takes an act of the City Council to do this!”
(See “Pickleball Players Apply Full-Court Press” in Vol. 4, No. 9.)
When the council got together for a work session on April 30, one of their topics was short- and long-term plans for the Wagon Wheel facility. Although they took no official action on that date, Council Member Jim Walker advocated for painting pickleball lines on all of the tennis courts.
“Part of the frustration, as I understand it, has been that there’ll be tennis courts out there that aren’t being utilized at particular times, but they’re not lined for pickleball, and so the optionality just doesn’t exist,” Walker said.
The April 30 discussion was led by Assistant Director of Community Experiences Sheri Belmont, who said adding pickleball lines to one more tennis court was a possibility. But she said the staff would not recommend “double lining” every court at Wagon Wheel because that might upset some tennis purists. Belmont said facilities in other communities have lost users after turning all of their courts into hybrid venues for pickleball and tennis.
Walker also suggested that non-residents should pay “quite a bit more” to play at Wagon Wheel than residents are charged. The current fees for open play or court reservations are $3 for residents and $3.50 for non-residents.
Belmont said a fee adjustment is one of three short-term changes that should take effect on June 1. The Community Experiences Department wanted to wait until the Wagon Wheel facility’s new manager came on board, and Joe Weber’s first day in that role was April 29. For the past couple of years, Weber has managed operations and events for Frisco-based U.S. Youth Soccer. He replaced Eric Clay, who left Coppell last September to become the manager of a new $4.5 million pickleball facility in Southlake.
The other short-term changes will be expanding the Wagon Wheel facility’s operating hours and adding a new session for pickleball open play. Council Member Brianna Hinojosa-Smith asked whether those changes would necessitate hiring more people, and Belmont said not necessarily.
In the long term, the city has hired PROS Consulting to conduct a feasibility study to determine how the Wagon Wheel facility could be expanded and whether pickleball courts could be built elsewhere in the city.
Council Member Mark Hill said the Coppell Senior and Community Center would be an “ideal location” for new pickleball courts. “We have plenty of land there,” he said.
Old Town Parking Philosophy Stays in Place
Business owners advocating for reserved parking spaces in Old Town are out of luck for the time being.
During the Coppell City Council’s April 30 work session, Deputy City Manager Kent Collins said the staff would not recommend any kind of reserved parking that would require city enforcement. He said Old Town was developed with the idea that all street parking would be shared by the neighborhood’s businesses and residents.