Kenai beautification panel floats $700,000 tennis and pickleball court rebuild

Rebuilding Kenai High School's tennis courts into two tennis and four pickleball courts would cost about $700,000, Parks and Recreation Director Tyler Best told the Beautification Commission on Tuesday.

A pickleball club and a tennis player have asked about partnering with the high school, and several groups have offered money, Best said. "With 2 tennis courts and 4 pickleball courts, with concrete, which is kind of the ideal scenario, is in the ballpark of $700,000," he said.

Andrea Mallard of the Kenai Peninsula Pickleball Club told the commission that Kenai has the only outdoor pickleball courts on the peninsula. The demand is not universal, though. Elsewhere, tennis players have fought similar conversions of their courts.

The court concept is on the proposed capital list for the coming years. A $50,000 street-light replacement on that list is already approved. The Leif Hansen fountain restoration has come off it, and Best is looking to the Kenai Community Foundation for money instead.

Commissioner Sherry Powell said her boyfriend, a journeyman painter, is fixated on the fountain's rusty fish. "He can't stand that they are rusty," she said.

The commission expects to vote Oct. 13 on whether to send the capital plan to the City Council. The cost estimate is still preliminary.