Residents in Bethesda’s Woodmont Triangle have been wondering recently what was happening to the tennis court at Battery Lane Park.
Over the past two weeks, the fencing around the court had been removed and construction vehicles have been paving the once-green surface with asphalt.
A nearby resident on Thursday even commented that residents of her apartment building were concerned the tennis court was being removed. A Bethesda blogger wrote a two-part series about the “secretive work in Battery Lane Park.”
So what’s happening? Montgomery Parks Director Mike Riley said in an email Thursday the court is being resurfaced.
“The court should be open for play again in a few weeks with a new surface, fencing and temporary line striping,” Riley wrote. “We will apply the permanent color surface in the spring when the weather is right and the leaves are not falling.”
He said the court was in “really bad condition.” Before the resurfacing, the court had a large crack down the middle of the playing surface as well as other smaller cracks.
Riley also admitted the department didn’t do the best job notifying the community about the project.
“We dropped the ball with community notification about what we were doing,” Riley wrote in the email. “Improvement in this area is a priority for me. We should not make park patrons and community members have to guess what we are doing in their community park.”
On Thursday, a sign stood near the court, where workers were beginning to reinstall fence posts, notifying residents that the tennis court is being renovated and that the project is expected to be completed in November.
The tennis court on Thursday. Credit: Andrew Metcalf
