Rotary Park Ceremony

A ribbon cutting ceremony for Perrysburg Rotary Community Park’s five new outdoor tennis courts was held on Tuesday, July 10, at 11:00 a.m. near the courts. Perrysburg Rotary Community Park is located off of Ft. Meigs Road, across from Ft. Meigs Elementary School, near the corner of Ft. Meigs Road and Eckel Junction Road. The ceremony included comments from Mayor Nelson Evans and other city officials as well as members of the Perrysburg Rotary Club.

The City of Perrysburg funded the construction of the five tennis courts at a cost of $166,000, which includes a $23,000 Ohio Nature Works Grant. The asphalt courts are fenced and painted in blue and green, the same colors used by the U.S. Tennis Association. They are open to the public during daylight hours and meet the regulations that will allow high school tennis tournaments to be held there.

Perrysburg Rotary Community Park has been a 10-year project, with the Perrysburg Rotary Club donating $200,000 as seed money used to fund the infrastructure of the park. The City of Perrysburg also contributed $100,000 for infrastructure work. As part of the infrastructure work, a walking/jogging trail was installed. The tennis courts are the first non-infrastructure portions of the park to be added.

“We would like to see other community groups step forward and sponsor the funding of the planned soccer fields and baseball diamonds,” says Jeff Normand, Perrysburg Rotary Club board member and local architect. “We’ve already had some interest from a few groups and hope to see that interest become a reality.” Sponsorship opportunities are available for groups or individuals who want to fund windscreens for the tennis courts. The windscreens will not have advertising on them. Normand says the park will eventually include six half-sized soccer fields for young children, which can be converted to three full-sized fields, two baseball diamonds for Little League play, and a restroom.

According to Judy Hagen, the City of Perrysburg’s Recycling, Litter & Beautification Coordinator, the City is currently working on filling and grading the future soccer fields at the park to promote drainage. She also noted that individuals who donated trees to the Park can affix their donor/tree identification plaques to the trees at the conclusion of Tuesday’s ribbon cutting ceremony. The identification plaques are part of the Native species identification program that was a portion of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Grant.