New tennis, pickleball courts ready for use
Hamilton Crossing Park now has new tennis courts, pickleball courts, better lighting, and improved infrastructure. Many big and small changes have been made using SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) money.
Greg Hight, Bartow County Parks and Recreation director, said the project is one way the county is trying to provide for growth.
“We’ve tried our best to serve everyone in the county,” High said. “The new soccer field will serve 800 kids.”
He said the new tennis courts are designed better with many modern improvements over the old versions. The asphalt court has some bounce to it and the fencing is better. Hight said employees visited other facilities and brought back ideas they incorporated.
Pickleball is becoming a popular sport so it couldn’t be ignored. Those courts are located behind the tennis courts near the dog park, which was also constructed a couple of years ago with SPLOST money.
Height said a dog park and pickleball were on the recreational department’s radar for a while.
“We did see [pickleball] coming,” he said. “It was something added to the master plan. There is a big demand for pickleball. It’s one of the fastest-growing sports in the country,” he said.
SPLOST is a one-cent sales tax approved by the public that funds a specific project for the community. Bartow County has used SPLOST money for more than 20 years to provide for projects that a typical county budget couldn’t pay for. One of the advantages of a SPLOST, according to Hight and other public officials, is that it’s a tax paid by everyone who buys anything in this county. That includes visitors and tourists, relieving the tax burden from residents.
The $33 million project has been going since 2017, although Hight said the concept started long before that. The land was bought in 2012 or 2013. The county has been slower in getting work done because Hight said it didn’t want to go into debt by issuing bonds for the project. Instead, it has been making changes and additions as money comes in.
Simple fixes were done first, he said. That includes replacing lighting with better, more energy-efficient versions and fixing the main entrance road and parking lot by the Beavers Drive Senior Center. As it was, senior citizens had to cross traffic to enter the building.
A playground was updated and the dog park, which has areas for both small and big dogs, was added about four years ago.
Work is far from done. Earth movers are working on land at the far end of the park to complete more of the project. That will include the soccer field, volleyball and basketball courts. There will also be space for flying disc golf, another sport that has become popular in recent years.
Changes were made to the proposed gymnasium to include three basketball courts instead of two. It will be a multi-story building that will also contain an indoor walking track. Height said that creates more use of the building when the weather is colder.
The project also includes a water park.
“Everybody wants something to do with water in the county,” Height said, referring to polls and surveys taken before project plans were finalized. “We figured a water park would satisfy the broad base of the county.”
Height said the project is moving faster now and he expects 90 percent to be completed in two years.
Putting money into better recreational facilities is a good investment, according to Height. Most of the children served are younger, as young as 3 and 4 years old. It is their first introduction to sports and teams so the experience is important. Many move on from recreational sports to school teams in middle school, Height said.
He said improvements will save money over the years because more sports can be moved back from the LakePoint fields to county facilities. Height said between 5 and 10 percent of teams in most sports use LakePoint because of a lack of field space in county parks.
Another benefit is moving Camp Bartow to Hamilton Crossing Park. That is an eight-week summer camp for children ages 4 to 11. It is a highly successful program where kids are given character education as well as both outdoor and indoor activities, arts and crafts, and weekly field trips for $125.
