New Tennis, Pickleball Courts Open In Farmingdale

FARMINGDALE, NY — New dual-use tennis and pickleball courts opened at Farmingdale High School, with a ribbon-cutting held Thursday.

There are five new courts. The courts will be open to the public on weekends or when not in use by the school. The varsity boys tennis season runs in the spring, while the girls season is in the fall. People can check out the schedule here.

Superintendent Paul Defendini said he feels "fantastic" about being able to open new tennis courts.

The tennis courts were constructed as part of the $36 million bond that Farmingdale residents approved in 2016 for the sports complex and Aquatic Center at Howitt Middle School, Defendini said.

"We actually took the tennis courts down behind the high school so we could move the maintenance facility to the back of the Southern State Parkway," Defendini told Patch. "That was the first step that we took: to clear that out of the Howitt area so we could build the Aquatic Center and fields over at Howitt now, full circle. The last thing we're doing is putting the courts back, and we're putting them back in a more prominent place. Where they were located before was right in the middle of a parking lot. Now they're located in our athletic complex over here at the high school."

Defendini said students and community members can watch a school match, practice or game — an opportunity they have not had over the past few years.

All five courts are being used, as it is the minimum number needed to house competitions.

"We believe that our athletes have a right to have a true home game," Defendini said. "Before we had the tennis courts here, our tennis team was not able to have home meets here. They had to travel to other facilities to play."

Varsity teams' practices were cut short because they needed to spend time traveling on the bus.

The pickleball lines drawn onto the courts made "a lot of sense," as there is no added cost to the district, Defendini said.

"Our community now, when our kids are not using them, get a lot of use, because pickleball is all the rage," Defendini said.

The courts have no lighting and will be open from daybreak until dusk, Defendini said. There are no current plans to add lighting, the superintendent said.

"We understand our responsibility not only to doing the best we can to build projects that are meaningful, accessible and usable, but also being responsible to our community," he said. "We have residents here who connected to the tennis courts, and we're always trying to be thoughtful about not putting lights on and opening up this environment to the later evening hours. We'll see as time goes on whether or not that changes. But for now, we're happy with the fact that we have the courts as they are today, and there are no immediate plans to add lights."

Community members may use the courts anytime school is not in session or when school teams are not using the courts.

Saturdays and Sundays, as well as in the summer, the courts will be available for public use, Defendini said.

"During the fall and spring months, they're going to be used in the after hours, because we have our own teams here," he said. "...They can always take a look at the tennis schedule to get an understanding where they might be at any given time. [The varsity team] might have an away match, and they'll be open for the community's use. But they have to assume for the most part that during the fall and during the spring, really the courts will be reserved for Saturdays and Sundays, until we get a little later on into the spring season, when the sun goes down a little later. Our team wraps up a lot of the time around 5 p.m., so the community would have use all the way from 5 p.m. to dusk."