Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 39
Council OKs Parks and Recreation Purchases • Victory Shops Could be Full of Food • Warehouse Approved Next to Cemetery • One-Bedroom Rental Gets Four Thumbs Up
When I launched the Chronicle in 2021, a friend of mine doubted this one tiny town would generate four topics worth writing about every week.
Au contraire, mon frère. Your correspondent sometimes gets four headline-worthy articles from a single meeting. Today is one of those times.
Council OKs Parks and Recreation Purchases
In a recent edition of this newsletter, I said my family moved to Coppell for the schools (as opposed to the library, the rec center, or the parks). Make no mistake, though: Our parks are pretty nice — and they’re about to get even nicer.
The City Council unanimously approved a series of parks-and-recreation expenditures on Tuesday. I’ve ranked them in order of their price tags.
$119,615 for six basketball goals and bases at Andrew Brown Park West
$87,057 for 20 tables and 80 chairs in the Grand and Boardwalk pavilions at Andrew Brown Park East
$75,353 for nine cardio machines at the Coppell Senior and Community Center
$56,784 to resurface the courts at the Wagon Wheel Tennis and Pickleball Center
$54,930 to replace six nets and 10,500 square feet of artificial turf at the batting cages near Field 6 in Wagon Wheel Park
During the work session before Tuesday’s meeting, Council Member Biju Mathew requested more information about the most expensive items on that list. He was under the impression that some of the basketball goals at Andrew Brown Park West were still under warranty. However, Park Operations Manager David Ellison said that was not the case; a few of the goals had been moved from Andrew Brown Park East and date back to that park’s earliest days, Ellison said.
At least two of the six goals’ curved concrete bases have cracked, which led Ellison’s staff to remove their rims. One goal was still out of commission on Saturday. As I’ve previously reported, the replacements approved on Tuesday will be powder-coated metal poles.
“The integrity of the concrete is not lasting,” Director of Community Experiences Jessica Carpenter told the Coppell Recreation Development Corporation board in July. While the poles will be “not as visually interesting, from a maintenance standpoint, it makes more sense for us.”
(See “Slate of Parks and Rec Projects Proposed” in Vol. 4, No. 21.)
Later in Tuesday’s work session, during a presentation on cooperative contracts, Ramesh Premkumar questioned the price of $767.60 for each chair in the Andrew Brown Park East pavilions. “It kind of looked high to me,” he said.
Jennifer Cook, the city’s senior procurement specialist, said Coppell’s best-value criteria is not just about price. “It’s about vendor reputation, references, experience, customer service,” Cook said. “That has to align with City of Coppell’s expectations as well.”
And City Manager Mike Land chimed in to say that these tables and chairs are designed for outdoor use by hundreds of people over the course of many years. “It is not what you would put in your backyard,” Land said of the furniture made by The PlayWell Group.
The five expenditures approved Tuesday add up to nearly $394,000. That amount will be covered by the Coppell Recreation Development Corporation, which is funded by sales taxes.
Victory Shops Could be Full of Food
One development could bring more than a dozen new restaurants to Coppell.
The Victory Shops at Coppell has long been in the works on the east side of South Belt Line Road. I’ve written a few articles about its revised plans over the years:
Vol. 2, No. 26: “Developer Has Big Plans on Belt Line”
Vol. 2, No. 48: “Plans for Banquet Hall Get Derailed”
Vol. 3, No. 19: “Victory Shops Trigger New Traffic Signals”
On Tuesday, the Coppell City Council approved yet another revision to the plans, which now include this schematic: