Wesselman Park Tennis Court Update: by: Martha Crosley

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Dec. 5, 2011

We have just learned that attendance at the BZA meeting of Dec. 15, 2011 of those interested in the Evansville Community Association Tennis issue of placing a large tennis building in Wesselman Park will not be needed. All needed documentation for this building to be placed in a new location has been completed.

We believe this is a win/win/win and want to wish the ECTA the best with this endeavor.

Our next question concerns the placement of additional outdoor tennis courts in the park. We would hope that new outdoor courts would be placed near the new building so that the tournaments that were so important to the ECTA could still be held here in Evansville. But we are not sure if that will be the case.

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you very much for your hard work Martha. Today’s announcement just goes to show that it doesn’t have to be an either/or at Wesselman Park just like with the Roberts Stadium situation.

    I wish the ECTA well with their new facility (I’m curious where it’s going to be at) and I look forward to seeing Wesselman Woods both preserved and improved at the same time.

    I’m confident that Mayor-Elect Lloyd Winnecke will duplicate this win-win outcome with our project next door.

    • Jordan,
      The new tennis facility is just off Hwy 41 north sort of in the area of Bob’s Gym. It has easy access and all the land required to handle a building this size. It is also near motels should a tournament come to town.

      Interestingly, at the Park Board meeting this week there will be a discussion of invasive species in Wesselman. Thought you’d like to know.

  2. Saw a bunch of turkeys at McDonald’s Golf Course that came from Wesselman Woods. Hopefully they are not the invasive species.

  3. I am hopeful that 12 NEW OUTDOOR courts will still be built at Wesselman’s (just as the contract with the city states) so ECTA can use several locations for bigger tournaments just as the soccer community does!!! So, thanks M.Crosley, you may get your wish after all and not have the indoor facility built, but ECTA still gets more courts at Wesselman and on the north side of town…a win-win for the community indeed!!!

  4. After much thought and thinking about all of the baseball facilites and all the noise, trash, lights and late night parking in Wesselmans, golf, volleyball, picnics, and cycling I realize that i am too hopeful that 12 NEW OUTDOOR courts will still be built at Wesselman’s so ECTA can use the location with other locations for bigger tournaments just as our soccer community does!!!
    I want to wish M.Crosley the best and certainly also wish ECTA the very best as now a few more outdoor courts only will just be refreshing to our community park. Wesslemans is a Community park in which I grew up in and still today i love to walk and watch all the sports facitlies offered at the complex. Wesselmans is truly a sports oriented park and Evansville is so blessed to have such a fantastic facility. Evansville’s youth and adults alike are priviledged to have the Tennis facility. Good Luck ECTA and you have my support for a outdoor facility in the park. The ECTA group has taken great care of the park and do not cost us the taxpayers anything and yet you add to the benefits of the park. Hopefully voluteers at our Wesslemans nature facilty and ECTA can come together and demonstrate how two groups can work together. ECTA still is deserving of receiving the support in their new project of finishing the final outdoor courts at Wesselman, this is a win-win for our community indeed!

  5. The decision with Wesselman Park is an either-or situation.

    Either keep the park as a green space, make moderate improvements to the cleaning, maintenance and upgrade of existing structures and widen the main access road to the park, then advertise the park as a family-friendly and safe place to enjoy –

    – or –

    Continue the rape of the precious little land that remains and continue to make Wesselman more and more commercial until the only thing that remains is the old-growth forest.

    How sad that this is even a discussion point.

    AHL

    • Alan
      I understand and agree with what you have expressed. Sports are not the only thing in life or even the best thing. There needs to be balance between the acres and acres of land already assigned to sports and the much fewer acres of open green space that remains in Wesselman Park.

      Look how much space is consumed by golf, baseball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, etc. not to mention the Harrison soccer fields (or is one a baseball field?), and the extra land given to the two armories, and the additions to the Good Samaritan Home. I have no quarrel with all that has been done but isn’t it time to stop?!?

      There is a concept used by those very experienced in park management, development, and rehabilitation. It is is based on a park providing both structured and unstructured activities to meet the needs of the most people. Great parks provide both in good measure. As Wesselman Park stands now, it has lost much of its unstructured space to structured space. If additional courts go in, plus the parking that will be needed to support them, very, very little if any unstructured space will be left in Wesselman Park.

      The ECTA has done a good job of taking care of the courts now in Wesselman but as people above have mentioned courts in other areas of the city would provide a variety of locations for the public, and after all, this is a public park. The public is the most important recipient of park services not the 1-2 tennis tournaments a year that MAY come to Evansville, or not

      I do not understand why Wesselman Park has been the target of so many take-over attempts in the last several years. Why do the people of Evansville want to destroy what is beautiful, overrun that which is natural, and deprive their fellow citizens of enjoying the park in their own way to the exclusion of all else?

  6. I think this is AWESOME!!! Now ECTA can operate uninhibited in attracting all the profitable tennis tournaments to Evansville. It will be interesting to see if the USTA will come thru with all these tournament opportunities that they promised when ECTA was trying to get city monies. We should all applaud the success of ECTA in growing tennis (at zero taxpayer investment) in Evansville for those who can truely appreciate (and afford) this great sport. I am sure that those who will be employed by ECTA will add to the tax base of our community. A win win. Evansville has the opportunity to grow tennis, and jobs are created to increase our tax revenue. AMAZING! (I wonder if ECTA will be paying property taxes or if this is more land that is being removed from the tax roles???)

  7. I think that you may be missing some points here. First the ECTa will not be employing anyone unless they run the new tennis building as a non-profit business and add 1-2 employees. They have an all volunteer group that runs the current courts at Wesselman. The business being run out of the new tennis building may be separate from the non-profit ECTA and assumably will be run by the tennis instructors. That has not been announced.

    Secondly the reason that the Convention and Visitors Bureau did not want to put money toward this expansion of tennis courts and building is that the return on investment dollars would be so low, that is, that the number of tournaments and the money generated by them would not be significant and would have very minimal effect on the tourism business in Evansville. So don’t count on all the tourism opportunities that you mentioned happening any time soon.

    Lastly, the new tennis building would pay real estate taxes I believe but they may dodge other taxes depending on how they are structured (profit vs non-profit). The tennis courts that may or may not be added to Wesselman are on public property and the ECTA basically makes good money on them without paying any taxes at all.

    Oh, and there is some tax payer investment. We have paid the utility bills on the existing tennis courts for the last several years now. Not only that, we gave them the land on which they make their non-profit (non-taxed)money. And now that land does not have the possiblility of general use. It can only be used for tennis. That is a huge public loss.

    What is, to use your word, AMAZING is that the Park Board has continued, as Mr. Leibundguth said, to let the rape of Wesselman Park continue.

  8. Martha, That is the point exactly. If anyone doubts that ECTA wanted the city to help fund a private club, just watch how this new facility is run. Nobody should believe that the building will be staffed and maintained by “volunteers” on an ongoing basis. The investment will need to earn returns, and I am willing to wager lunch that there will be hourly employees, membership fees, and court time fees. This will, look like a duck, quack like a duck, and fly like a duck.. it will be a duck (private club). It is my belief in watching this whole process work out that this was members of the tennis community working thru ECTA (an organization that does great things) to get the city to fund a club for their own personal use. Once the funding was denied, the true colors came out and now, as it should be, this new tennis club will be built with private monies and we shall all see how this thing actually “quacks”. I wish the owners of this new building well in their venture into private business.

  9. WOW! You people continue to amaze me!!! How else do you think ECTA sustains the operations if not for court fees rather you are playing in a league or private lessons? There has to be rules and order!!! This group has a proven track record to honor its core mission, “to grow tennis in the community” by volunteering for the upkeep of the courts (indoor or outdoor) until it turns it over to the city. ECTA DOES pay all the utilities at Wesselman and maintains the courts at no cost to the public. The only thing the city does is pick up the trash and cuts the grass. If one wants to take private lessons, there are a number of pros available to offer this service for a fee. In turn, those who teach must pay court fees back to ECTA. In the summer time when my kids take private lessons at the public pools, we pay the lifeguards; when they wanted to learn more about golf, we paid for private lessons at the public golf course; when they play recreational baseball at the public leagues, we pay fees, so why is this any different. My only concern is when the city actually takes over the tennis courts at Wesselman, will it be maintained as good as what ECTA is doing? I hope so, let’s be honest they are not doing a good job now with our parks, and our taxes are paying for it!!!

    And, if you are worried about keeping things green at Wesselman’s, don’t, the new courts will be GREEN with white stripes!!!

    • Could you possibly miss the point any further? It is not about all the sports at Wesselman and what they do and how they operate. It is about having a small part of the park not being used for specific sports. I know you are smart enough to get it. You are just choosing not to, which is only showing how selfish you are.

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