A ground breaking ceremony was held this week at the site of the future Tennis Dome on Bear Line Road.
Mayor Darrin Canniff said this marked a “big first step” in the “amazing project coming to Chatham-Kent.
“Along with Tennis Canada, we broke ground on the Year-Round Tennis Dome, a key feature of the new park being built on Bear Line,” Mayor Canniff said on social media.
“We’re honoured to be one of only six communities in Canada to receive funding from Tennis Canada and Rogers as part of their Year-Round Community Tennis Courts Program. I want to extend a huge thanks to St. Clair College for donating the land that this will be built on, Hydro One for their contributions to the Bear Line park, and Councillors Brock McGregor, Michael Bondy and Anthony Ceccacci for coming out to support.”
Mayor Canniff added: “This tennis dome, and the entire Bear Line park, will provide another great venue for Chatham-Kent residents to have fun, learn new skills, and live more healthy and active lifestyles.”
As previously reported, the Year-Round Community Tennis Courts Program presented by Rogers was set for its most impactful year since its inception in 2022 with six municipalities selected to receive a total of $1.2 million in funding to develop covered tennis courts in 2024.
Spread across three provinces, projects in the municipalities of Niagara, Mississauga, St Catharines and Chatham-Kent, Ontario as well as Ile-Bizard, Quebec were confirmed for 2024.
Tennis Canada officials said the four year-round courts will be created by the Chatham-Kent project with 400 additional court hours per week created by project.
Each of these projects will be provided $200,000 in seed money per project, bringing Tennis Canada and Rogers’ investment in the program to $1.2 million this year alone and the total number of completed and ongoing projects as part of the program to 14.
In its third year, the Year-Round Community Tennis Courts Program has already made a substantial impact across the country.
Completed projects in Markham and Hamilton, Ontario, Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, as well as Waterloo, Quebec have delivered 26 new covered courts, providing 4.1 million Canadians access to year-round tennis.
Each club saw its winter court bookings and membership enrollment increase dramatically for the new indoor seasons, thanks to the collective additional 3,561 hours of court time per week that were made available to their communities.
Further projects in Thunder Bay, Stratford and Toronto, Ontario are also currently under construction as part of the program.
“It’s tremendous to see this program continue to flourish as we work towards our goal of making tennis more accessible to Canadians across the country,” said Gavin Ziv, Chief Executive Officer, Tennis Canada, in a media release.
More details are available at https://www.tenniscanada.com/.
