There’s good news and bad news for pickleball fans in Centerville. The good news? The city has decided on a contractor for the project – Parkin Tennis Courts which is a local company, and the bid (at $799,000) is lower than the city engineer’s estimates of $811,288. The bad news? Although the contractor is ready to begin construction right away, the city must hold off on signing the contract with Parkin until it receives word that Centerville will be receiving a $250,000 federal land water conservation fund grant to help fund the project.

The city received just two bids on the project; Parkin’s bid and another from S&L Inc. for $1,199,590.

The grant is regulated by the Utah Department of Outdoor Recreation which submits its recommendations to the National Parks Service which ultimately approves the grants. Parks and Cemetery Director Bruce Cox applied for the grant in 2023 and expected to hear back by last fall whether the city had been approved, he told the city council April 2. However, there has been a huge backlog with grant approvals from the National Park Service and Cox has heard nothing.

“They cannot have notice to proceed until we have the grant contracts in hand,” he said.

While it looks really good for Centerville to get grant approval, without those funds to proceed the city would need to come up with $350,000 to see the project to completion, Cox said. It’s a scenario that Mayor Clark Wilkinson and several members of the city council appear to have no stomach for.

“I have a difficult time when we budgeted $500,000 for something spending $800,000 on it just when you’ve got a water tank that’s got to be done and everything else,” Wilkinson said.

The plan for the eight courts at Community Park has already been scaled back from its original concept which came with an estimated $1.2 million price tag.

Councilmember Spencer Summerhays held a Zoom town hall meeting on the proposed pickleball courts last year.

“For those that attended they said they liked X pickleball court, but they said ‘We just want pickleball courts. Will you stop talking? We want pickleball courts,’” Summerhays said. “There were more people in attendance at that meeting than most any other meeting.”

That evening the city council voted unanimously to authorize Wilkinson to sign the contract with Parkin Construction just as soon as the city gets the go-ahead from the National Parks Service.

“They could send me an email tomorrow saying you know here’s the contracts let’s get them signed but it could be the end of the month,” Cox said. (At press time, Centerville City had still not received that authorization).

Pickleball has really taken hold in Centerville, and it is one of the most popular requests from residents, City Manager Brant Hanson told Wilkinson and the city council that evening.

“This will be your most widely used amenity in the city, and I think there's something to speak about providing this because short of a splash pad and new playground equipment at Community Park, those are probably our top three greatest desires from the community, and they're very vocal,” he said. “That's a tough amount of money, but at the same time it's going to be an amenity that’s going to be used more than some of this playground equipment or even a splash pad.” 

City officials had hoped to have the pickleball courts completed before Centerville’s July 4 celebration but that does not appear likely. The city has 60 days from the bid opening to award the bid before it becomes null and void, City Attorney Lisa Romney told the city council.