Tennis Court Maintenance: What's the Cost?

The Tredyffrin-Easttown School Board decided late Friday night to postpone the demolition of the Valley Forge Elementary tennis courts, but the courts' fate is still undecided.

The school district has argued—among other reasons to remove the courts—that maintaining the two outdoor courts would be too expensive. One neighbor said the community would provide maintenance. 

In an email sent Friday to school board President Kevin Buraks and TE Patch, Lexington Lane resident Matthew Morgan wrote, "The community would be more than willing to maintain the courts, if asked."

How much does tennis court maintenance cost?

Keeping tennis courts in good working order can cost thousands of dollars every few years, depending on how often the surface is repaired, according to two sources TE Patch spoke with.

Marie Thomas, tennis director at Upper Main Line YMCA, which maintains a dozen outdoor courts, said in an email that costs vary, but preventative maintenance is important:

There is no regular, annual cost per se. It’s not like your driveway that you need to seal every year to keep it in working order. I would say over a 3-5 yr period you may need a new net and center straps  that would be $200-$250. You can take them down in the winter to prolong their use.

Ideally every 5 yrs or so you would like to have a court company come in and fill cracks so they don’t get worse and the courts need to be totally replaced – THAT is very expensive. We [replaced] two last year and it was close to $50,000 – so you don’t want to get to that point. If you do the filling it may be a few thousand – not every year, maybe every 3-5 yrs.

Tredyffrin Township turned the courts over to the school district before Bill Martin came on as township manager, but in a recent email he provided round figures from when the township was still footing the bill:

Prior to 2008 we would replace the nets every other year or so at about $1,000, we would collect trash on a weekly basis and fence repairs sparingly. The big issue was the court surfaces which generally runs about $5,000 per court or in this case $10,000 for the two.

What that doesn’t tell you is hourly cost of the time for [Public Works] to go over there to replace the nets, and pick up the trash.  Again, overall it is relatively small, but there is a cost and use of very limited personnel who would be doing other tasks.

Tredyffrin-Easttown School District has said that it has never maintained the courts. The photo above, taken March 27, 2013, then presumably shows the condition of the courts after more than four years without major surface maintenance.