Oklahoma City Tennis Center

[Patrick]

For many months now our mayor has been working behind the scenes to come up with a renovation plan for the OKC Tennis Center at Will Rogers Park. This used to be a champinship caliber tennis center, but over recent years, the city has allowed the center to deteriorate, and many pro events have left for bigger and better venues. There has obviously been a need to renovate the center to try to attract championship caliber events back to the center. Thus, Mick Cornett assembled a task force to come up with a plan. Fortunately, the money was already in place from the last bond issue.

Mr. Cornett revealed the plans today:

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"Mayor unveils renovation plans for city's tennis center

By Bob Colon
Senior Staff Writer

Things will be brighter at the Oklahoma City Tennis Center when the $1.8 million in renovations are completed by March 2006.

Mayor Mick Cornett unveiled the master plan for improvements for the Will Rogers Park facility, 3400 N Portland, during a public meeting this week. The money comes from bonds voted in 2000 and will fund an overhaul of the tennis center.

There's a chance OKC Tennis Inc. a task force assembled by Cornett to enhance the future of the sport in the city, could harken the return of pro tennis events.

"We have a great geographic location for hosting events and we have very high standards," Cornett said. "I think we will see a pro tournament here. The next step would be to build an outdoor stadium court similar to what they have at Springfield, Mo."

City officials and members of OKC Tennis Inc. toured the Cooper Tennis complex in Springfield, Mo., before starting on the improvement project at Will Rogers Park.

The Springfield complex hosted women's Fed Cup matches in 2002 and is home of the Springfield Lasers of World Team Tennis. It's considered one of the premier municipal tennis facilities with 17 outdoor courts including a stadium with seating for 2,500. It also has six indoor courts with four more coming by July of 2006.

OKC Tennis Inc. is a privately funded non-profit organization. Brad Lund, CEO of Express Sports, is chairman. Tommy English, director of tennis at The Greens, and businessman Marshall Snipes are also on the three-member executive committee.

Oklahoma City hasn't had a pro tennis event since Davis Cup matches in February 2002. A women's pro indoor tournament was here for 16 years and was sold to a promoter in Memphis, Tenn., in 2001.

"We had three hard looks at Fed Cup," Lund said, "and in each situation, Fed Cup opted to go to an outdoor venue. Davis Cup knows we desperately want to get that back, and I think we will get it back. An indoor hard court would be our only option there.

"We had no intentions of a tour stop with the renovations, but that would be a natural direction to go. The top priority is getting the tennis center back on top in the Missouri Valley and improving the quality of life. A stadium would be icing on the cake."

The tennis center, which has 24 lighted courts, opened in 1969, but few improvements have been made in recent years. The center has lost some major youth tournaments to other cities in the Missouri Valley area.

"Our No. 1 complaint is about how bad our lights are out here," said Vikki Williams, head pro and manager of the tennis center. "They are the same lights we've had since the 1970s. They are outdated and not very bright."

New lights have already been installed on seven courts and the other 17 will be taken care of after the state high school tournaments in May.

"We would love to have an indoor facility," Williams said. "My predecessor (Dick Gilkey) tried to get that done. This is potentially something that could be done later. Covering three or four courts would help."

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Tennis Center planned improvements

Reshape berms, adding tiered areas for seating.

New lighting for 17 courts (completes upgrades on all 24 courts).

Resurface courts.

New restrooms and locker rooms.

Redo entryway, adding wrought iron gate and outside plazas.

Landscaping with improved drainage.

Update electrical and pro shop roof.

[Patrick]

The next goal needs to be to build a state of the art tennis stadium to attract larger cups to the center.

[xrayman]

This was a good move by the mayor. It's good to remember that Oklahoma City exists as "far out" as 36th and Portland. We've all come to think of our city (at least I have too often) to be downtown, bricktown, etc. Good move here I think.

[mranderson]

Personally, I have not played tennis since I was in my 20's, during the tennis fad. I will watch it, but I never really enjoyed playing it.

A remodel of the tennis center could be a good thing. More well known tournamants... And maybe a professional league franchise, if there is a league.

[Midtowner]

Bring back the "Virginia Slims"

[metro]

I'm surprised no one has posted anything on this the last few weeks. I meant to attend yesterday but couldn't get away. The 1.9million dollar renovation is now complete. For more on yesterday's grand re-opening, go to :

http://newsok.com/article/1834942/

[metro]

I swung by today and took some pics. You can find them in my gallery.

[Pete]

Very glad to see the city investing in that complex, as it was always one of the best around until it feel into disrepair.

I hope the sport will make a bit of a comeback as well...

The recent closing of Woodlake Racquet Club was a dark day for OK tennis.

[G.Walker]

Instead of bringing NFL to OKC, or building a stadium to attract NFL. Oklahoma City should think outside the box and build a world class tennis stadium. A nice world class stadium would work wonders for the Oklahoma City economy, and possibly host a major tennis tournament. Far less expensive to build and maintain vs. a NFL stadium, and would attract a more conservative crowd.

[G.Walker]

[OSUPeterson]

That would be an awesome addition to the city. We have a fairly large tennis following here in the state, and host a US open match or two ever few year. We need a better venue than the cox center though to get more tournaments hosted here.

They could also use the facility for larger missouri valley USTA tournaments since we are a pretty central location, with lots of hotels and easy commutes in and out of the city.

[metro]

I love the idea, OKC is a big tennis city too. We've hosted big tournaments before, and Mayor Mick is a big tennis fan. Promoted properly, I could see this one being reality. NFL is a pipedream.

[MDot]

I'm not big on tennis but I would be in favor of trying to get this to happen in Oklahoma City. Like metro said, we've hosted plenty of tennis events and Oklahoma Citians are pretty big on tennis as well so this could actually work out very well if it were to ever happen.

[theparkman81]

I think it will be cool if they did this, either though i am not a tennis fan myself, it can be also be the home of a world team tennis franchise.

[G.Walker]

Love it. Any suggestions on good locations?

I would locate it just west of the new central park, and have it bordered by the new boulevard to the north, Deep Deuce type housing to the south, and a high-rise hotel/condo to the west. I would also have streetcar route that goes right in front of the stadium.

[SoonerDave]

You know what, I think this might actually be a really good idea. It would make us different in the region, and you could think of it as a differentiator in the mode of the ASA Softball Stadium. That's become a *huge* draw, and a great tennis facility would be a perfect fit in terms of cost, maintenance, and marketability.

Would our windy and sometimes volatile weather make an outdoor tennis venue a hard sell in any way, you think? Someone more learned in the vagaries of pro tennis would have to offer some insight there. Other than that, I think this is a gem of an idea.

[SoonerDave]

Interesting idea, Sid....only problem I would see is that you'd have a devil of a time overcoming water issues. One of the main reasons you don't see many residential basements in OKC is that the water table is so high they're impossible or very expensive to waterproof, so I'm making an educated guess the same issue might be at hand for this. Not saying it can't be done, but it sure seems to risk increasing the $$$.

[G.Walker]

Nice Sid, really nice...I wonder if our city leaders have thought of actually building a tennis stadium? Getting away from the MAPS concept, I wonder if this could be funded? I am sure there are international private real estate development companies that could pull off such a task. The Chamber would have to put together a major marketing campaign to private land development companies to pull this off, and maybe, they would be successful to have a major land development company invest in our city.

[MDot]

G.Walker, I also want to thank you for coming up with something outside of the box. There's always topics about the NFL and one or two about the MLS and those get kind of old even though I could see an MLS team here in the near future, but for once something fresh and innovative was put on the table that nobody seen coming. LOL (no offense to those who start those topics)

[dankrutka]

This is a good idea. The great thing about the boathouse district and the college softball World Series is that they fill untapped niches. I think this could be successful if you could guarantee that you could get an annual major tournament here. I also think an MLS team might do well (although Tulsa might be a better bet)...

[swilki]

I think this sounds like a really interesting idea. I don't know much about tennis other than it involves some rackets and a yellow ball. But, just out of curiosity I looked up the NCAA Tennis Championships, it looks like they are always held at a university. Maybe we could also get something like that here just like we have the softball tournament. Kuddos for sure go to G. Walker on this and Sid, those are some really cool renderings that you have found.

[ljbab728]

Oklahoma City won't become a mecca for all sports anytime soon. We will need to start as a niche market as we are doing in water sports. A tennis center may or may not be the answer but who ever thought we would become a center for water sports? It just takes a spark of innovation with a little money and many things can happen.

[Pete]

Understand that to host any sort of tournament you need an entire tennis complex, with tons of other courts and facilities.

The best idea would be to integrate a true stadium court at the OKC Tennis Center in Will Rogers Park, which was recently upgraded and expanded.

But to do this anywhere near downtown would take a big chunk of real estate and would also require that there be plenty of memberships / usage throughout the year to keep the place running -- otherwise a tournament only lasts one week out of the year.

[Laramie]

Pete sounds like a great idea. We have adequate facilities at Will Rogers Park. Did we use to host a Virginia Slims at one time and Serena and Venus (Williams' sisters) got their start here in OKC; then, some corporation got into the act, a dispute evolved and the whole thing went somewhere--like Memphnis?

1. A first class Tennis facility at Will Rogers.

What about other areas of town like Lake Hefner, Stockyard City & south OKC? Lake Hefner has potential and we definitely need to invest in the Stockyards area since the old Stockyards Coliseum burned in 1970.

My dad worked in the Stockyards area as a butcher for Armour & Company back in the 1950s; it was referred to as "Packingtown."

old coliseum pics:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=stockya...search&shash=1


Many of you are too young to remember the old Friday night wrestling matches which were held at the old coliseum, many of the employees of the Stockyards went to the wrestling matches in this old ancient building. The villain & hero wrestlers like Great Bolo (mashed wrestler), Danny Hodge, Angelo Cevoli, Ali & Hassam Bay), Karl Krazier, Haystack Cowhoon... (Sorry for reminising and getting off topic!)

There was some much gum stuck on the concrete steps of the structure--it probably bonded the place from falling apart. It was a magnificant structure and whenever I'm in Fort Worth and see the 'Cowtown Coliseum' http://www.txgenweb.org/postcards/To...iseum1940s.jpg it reminds me of the OKC's Stockyard Coliseum.

We need to rebuild many of these areas of OKC which had their own identity.

Anyway, I'm down with the tennis facility.

[rcjunkie]

Pete sounds like a great idea. We have adequate facilities at Will Rogers Park. Did we use to host a Virginia Slims at one time and Serena and Venus (Williams' sisters) got their start here in OKC; then, some corporation got into the act, a dispute evolved and the whole thing went somewhere--like Memphnis?

1. A first class Tennis facility at Will Rogers.

What about other areas of town like Lake Hefner, Stockyard City & south OKC? Lake Hefner has potential and we definitely need to invest in the Stockyards area since the old Stockyards Coliseum burned in 1970.

My dad worked in the Stockyards area as a butcher for Armour & Company back in the 1950s; it was referred to as "Packingtown."

old coliseum pics:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=stockya...search&shash=1


Many of you are too young to remember the old Friday night wrestling matches which were held at the old coliseum, many of the employees of the Stockyards went to the wrestling matches in this old ancient building. The villain & hero wrestlers like Great Bolo (mashed wrestler), Danny Hodge, Angelo Cevoli, Ali & Hassam Bay), Karl Krazier, Haystack Cowhoon... (Sorry for reminising and getting off topic!)

There was some much gum stuck on the concrete steps of the structure--it probably bonded the place from falling apart. It was a magnificant structure and whenever I'm in Fort Worth and see the 'Cowtown Coliseum' http://www.txgenweb.org/postcards/To...iseum1940s.jpg it reminds me of the OKC's Stockyard Coliseum.

We need to rebuild many of these areas of OKC which had their own identity.

Anyway, I'm down with the tennis facility.

I couldn't agree more. I'm not a tennis player or fan, but this is a great idea. I love what's happening to bricktown/downtown, but don't understand why some feel as though everything needs to go there.