Dome sweet dome: St. Thomas Council approves winter bubble over Pinafore Park tennis courts

Each winter, the Mavretic family from St. Thomas, Ont. has to travel to London to find indoor tennis facilities.

Next winter, they’ll be able to play in their hometown.

St. Thomas City Council gave the thumbs up for staff to pursue an agreement with a third party operator to build and operate a temporary dome over the tennis and pickle ball courts at Pinafore Park.

“I'm really excited to have an indoor court near my house,” said Ella Mavretic, 9, who loves to play tennis with her dad Joe.

“We are travelling pretty much four or five days a week,” added Joe Mavretic, who has been playing at Pinafore for close to 30 years. “We're traveling to London and trying to book courts and there's a huge demand and not enough indoor courts in general in the area. So it's been it's been hard even book courts and now to have it here is pretty amazing.”

(L-R) Joe Mavretic, and his kids Roku, 5, and Ella, 9, travel from St. Thomas, Ont. to London multiple days per week in winter to play indoor tennis. (Brent lale/CTV News London)St. Thomas parks and recreation staff interviewed three other municipalities and tennis clubs in Aurora, Richmond Hill and Ajax who have similar lease agreements.

They all gave positive feedback.

“It's a private public partnership, where somebody is going to come in hopefully and take this on and dome this so that we can play all winter,” said St. Thomas Coun. Steve Wookey.

Wookey said there will be a cost for people to play in the winter, and that will be determined by whoever takes on the request for proposal.

“I think that in situations like this, it's low leverage,” said Wookey. “It's not like we're investing $10 million now and then oops, we made a mistake. This has cost relatively little money, and we give it a shot. You might you might have as a generation of indoor tennis and pickle ball for very little capital costs in the city side.”

Pickle ball has exploded over the past few years in St. Thomas, with eight courts at Pinafore Park and more being constructed in the city to meet the demand.

“In the winter we always have to rent from the to school boards, whether it be public schools or high schools to play and they're great, but they they're not set up for pickle ball,” said Kevin Jackson, president of the Railway City Pickle Ball League.

He added, “We've already requested permits for next winter at some of the schools already. So you do have to book it well in advance. And you don't always get the times you want. So be able to stay here will be awesome.”

Ardie Forouzandeh, 76, practices multiple times per week while the courts are open at Pinafore Park in St. Thomas, Ont. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)Ardie Forouzandeh, 76, can be found practicing on the tennis courts nearly every day in the summer. He used to travel to the North London Optimist Centre to play, but now just sticks to walking in the winter.

“This is definitely huge news,” said Forouzandeh after being told by CTV News London that council has approved the dome. “Every winter my sugar goes up because I can't practice. If it is a dome here, and I can practice I keep a sugar controlled.”

Council believes it is the seniors who play pickle ball, and tennis players like Forouzandeh that will benefit the most.

“I think that if we can whatever we can do to support healthy active living, that's what we want to do,” said Wookey.

Wookey added that with the courts having been just re-opened after a resurfacing, the dome will help preserve the surface long-term.