A pickleball court at Prifti Park.
Reminder Publishing file photo
SOUTHWICK — After nearly three years of fits and starts, a request for bids to build six pickleball courts at Whalley Park was released a couple weeks ago.
“We’re hoping June-ish to get things going if all things go well, which they don’t always,” said Parks and Recreation Commission Chair David DeiDolori during the commission meeting two weeks ago.
During the May 2023 Town Meeting, residents approved spending $207,990 to build four pickleball courts at Whalley Park.
However, after a subcommittee of the Parks and Recreation Commission researched the cost of building four, they believed that the $207,990 wasn’t enough, and they went back to the drawing board.
After several months, the commission came back with a plan to build six courts at Whalley Park that would include lighting, fencing and a pavilion for shade at an estimated cost of $670,000.
At the Town Meeting last May, an original allocation of $207,990 was supplanted by $462,009 for funds needed for the courts, which will include fencing, lighting and a pavilion for shade from the sun.
To get the project started, R Levesque Associates, Inc. developed the bid documents, which the town released on Jan. 14. Bids are due by Feb. 24.
DeiDolori said during the meeting that he hopes construction starts in April.
“[We’ll] hopefully have somebody start April 1, more or less, and we’re looking at a two-three-month time frame between putting the courts in, letting them sit, getting the fencing in and getting them striped,” he said.
The “letting them sit” refers to the amount of time between when the court’s surface is installed and the 45-day wait to allow them to cure.
According to the bid documents, the contractor should have the project substantially completed by July 28 and completed by Aug. 25.
The slow pace of the project was brought up by Randy White, a resident and pickleball coach and player who sat on the subcommittee that developed the estimate for the project.
“We got approved funding back in May, so it’s five months, a while ago, and it doesn’t seem to have moved along very, very quickly, or at all, unless I’m missing something,” White said during the commission’s meeting in early October.
DeiDolori was expecting the request for bids to be ready in late October.
White was also concerned that the bidding process would be broken into pieces for separate contractors to bid on, like for the lights, landscaping, fencing, court installation and pavilion.
The town will choose one contractor for the project, who will be supervised by R Levesque Associates, Inc., according to the bid documents.
Commissioner Daniel Welch wanted to know who would choose the contractor.
DeiDolori said it would be Chief Administrative Officer Nicole Parker and Rob Levesque.
“We should have a little bit more for the next meeting,” he said.
