Fairhope has been using Stimpson Field for many years. A variety of sports have been played on the 10-acre site. That tradition will continue at the newly revamped site, which opened Aug. 13.

The city recreation board has devoted half of the site to tennis courts and half to green space. Boyett said six asphalt tennis courts are now open. The rubberized coating on each court was achieved with eight coats of paint. The special coating acts like a shock absorber, “it helps the joints,” Boyett said. The courts are open daily from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., when the fence will be locked.

The green space at Stimpson Field is suitable for soccer practice, Boyett said, as well as general recreational use by residents.

Another addition to the park is an 8-foot wide asphalt walking track, which circles the property along its perimeter. To accomplish a mile, one has to walk around the track 2.5 times, Boyett said. One travels the equivalent of 2,200 linear feet with each circuit of the track.

A new parking lot was added on the Young Street side of the park that will hold 48-50 cars. The old parking lot at the corner of Mershon Street and Morphy Avenue, which holds 20 cars, was reworked.

Boyett said the new club house, which will be sited in the center of the park, will be bid out soon, and he hopes it will be completed in about three months. The 1,900-square-foot building will house restrooms, locker rooms for men and women, a lobby and one or two offices.

“The services at the club house will grow as need arises,” said Boyett and “the building has been designed to allow expansion.”

He said they also plan to put a small playground somewhere on the property.

Decorative and screening bushes have been planted along the Mershon side of the park and Boyett said trees, bushes and roses will be added around the new parking lot.

The budget for the Stimpson Field project, Boyett said, is around $500,000. While city employees are able to handle items like dirt, sod, plantings, fencing and exterior electrical work, the courts themselves as well as the building, are things they cannot do.

Providing tennis courts at Stimpson Field will enable the expansion of the Recreation Department at the Volanta Park site. Tennis courts located there will become part of a parking lot for the new recreation center, Boyett said. However, the Volanta Park tennis courts will remain open to the public until construction begins there.

“The new tennis courts is one step in a bigger program,” said Eddie Boyett, parks and recreation director for the city of Fairhope.

The new recreation center, a $2 million project, will take in the current gymnasium building and will attach to the pool building, with an L-shaped wing that juts out toward Greeno Road. The project will add about 19,000 square feet to the 13,000 square feet the current center contains. The new building will contain a basketball court, raised walking track, fitness center, sauna, racket ball court, game room and a conference room, Boyett said.

“This is something we have been trying to accomplish for eight-to-10 years. It all came to fruition last fall thanks to the mayor and City Council,” Boyett said.

Both projects are being funded by a bond issue approved by the City Council last fall, Boyett said.

“The next thing we need to accomplish is to find more land for the next five to 10 years,” Boyett said. The population continues to grow and additional park space will be required to keep up with the need for recreational services, he said, adding that currently the youth leagues are growing 10-15 percent each year.

The 30 acres at Founders Park behind Fairhope High School, which was given to the city by the Fairhope Single Tax Corp., is fully developed, he said.

The Fairhope Recreation Board services all the areas that the public school system services, Mike Ford, City Council liaison member of the recreation board, said, which basically runs from Alabama 104 south to Weeks Bay and east to Fish River.

The cost of land in Baldwin County is a major hurdle for the city in securing additional recreational land. The softball fields formerly at Stimpson Field have been replaced by new ones in the Barnwell area. Boyett said this was accomplished due to the Mobile Catholic Diocese leasing 40 acres to the city for 20-25 years. The land is located on U.S. 98 south of Fairhope, near the Barnwell Baptist Church.

The property currently contains two fenced in softball fields. Boyett said they were in the process of developing two youth football fields which can also be used for youth soccer. Boyett said the fields would be used mainly for recreation programs, but if the schools should need them, they would try to accommodate them, adding that “Ten different groups will be using the football municipal stadium this season.”

“When people come here usually the first thing they ask is what are the schools like and what do you have for kids to do?” Boyett said. “A lot of opportunities will be available to everyone in the community when the new recreation center is completed.”

The recreation board is comprised of: John Baker, Jenny Douglass, Jim Godfrey, Hank Mullins, Vann Saltz, Derek Thomas and Mike Ford, City Council liaison.