TORRINGTON – If you have driven by the Dale Jones Municipal Swimming Pool in Torrington, you might have noticed the buzz of workers hustling around making much-need pool repairs, but the swimming pool wasn’t the only thing getting a face lift at Jirdon Park recently. 

According to the City of Torrington Project Engineer, Mark Weis, the city has partnered with Banner Health and the Community Health Care Foundation to repurpose the old concrete tennis courts just north of the swimming pool and add a set of pickleball courts for the community to enjoy. 

According to Weis, the abandoned tennis court and make-shift ice rink was built in the 1970s and are no longer of regulation size. Over the years, the court sat unused only being utilized on occasion however, thanks to a considerable donation, teamwork and a brainchild, the idea blossomed into designing a location for pickleball enthusiasts while utilizing a structure already in place. 

“I grew up in Torrington. I grew up just blocks away,” Weis explained. “Ever since I can remember, and I was born in ’70, they were tennis courts. Then they got filled with water during the winter and we went ice skating. The pool was built in ’72, I believe, so I want to say the courts were probably built at the same time. There would be a 55-gallon drum as a burn barrel to warm your hands up and people would be passing drinks around. They were originally tennis courts,” Weis reiterated.

Occasionally, the courts would get some use during baseball season when the fence was utilized to keep stray pitches in check but it hasn’t seen much use in nearly 20 years.

“I’ve been with the city for 16 years and nothing’s been done with them in 16 years other than, I think, the baseball program maybe used it to warm up pitchers at one time or something like that,” Weis recalled. “For a long time, it was just an overgrown mess. It’s concrete. It cracks and you get movement in it. The surface wasn’t great. It had a lot of pock marks in it just from the years but the surfacing guys, they put down multiple layers of the rubberized coating. It doesn’t make it perfect, but it does make a playable surface.”

According to Weis, the company used a fine sand to prevent the rubber surface from being slick.

“It’s not a slick surface. It’s something that when you stop, you stop,” Weis said. 

Weis noted the tennis court was just a void no one wanted to address. 

“It just got neglected and it can be utilized somehow. This worked out perfectly,” Weis said.

“Banner Health got a donation from the Community Healthcare Foundation to build the pickleball courts,” Weis explained. “Once that was all taken care of, I went out and I got pricing for the improvements that needed to be done. Once we got the confirmation letter, then I scheduled Landscaping Plus to do a lot of the fence improvements to pretty it up. Then, we had Evergreen Courts in Fort Collins, Colorado to do professional court surfacing so that we had a non-slip surface for the players,” Weis said with excitement. 

According to Jessica Wiedman, Community Healthcare Foundation President, the foundation was glad to be a part of transforming the space into a cleaner, safer space to enjoy outdoor recreation.

“The Community Healthcare Foundation is a foundation that tries providing money or sponsorships to anyone in the community that want to use it for health-related reasons. This is definitely a health-related reason, getting people out there and moving and things like that,” Wiedman said. “Those have to be tangible things that the whole community will see a lot of benefit from.” 

Wiedman further noted the foundation has a history of donating to good causes however they have recently decided to reach out a bit further than the hospital walls.

“Our history was, we used to give a lot of things to the hospital. We donated an OB room and beds and things like that and we’re trying to push our money out of the hospital and into the community,” Wiedman said. “We’ve given a lot of AEDs to people. We’ve done a lot of different things in the community.”

Wiedman further noted the foundation had also given the school district a donation for athletic equipment. 

“Every year, Banner Health does a Better Together fundraising campaign. It started in Phoenix, where our main corporate offices are, where they ask employees to give back to a cause, whatever that cause may be. The employees get to choose what the cause is or have input in what that cause is. Every Banner Hospital across the organization has a different campaign with a different purpose,” Ingrid Ling, Torrington Community Hospital CEO/CNO explained. “The first year we did it, it was to create an outdoor sitting space for the staff and patients. There just really wasn’t a place to eat lunch outside or get some fresh air and just to get some vitamin D when you’re a patient,” Long said. “It goes a long way.”

Long further noted the sitting area is located on the south side of the building. 

“It was a super successful campaign. Then, Dr. Randolph actually is the one who came up with the pickleball court – how do we make this healthcare related? How do we expand it beyond the four walls of the hospital and really have an impact in the community at large? So, she kind of came to us and we’re like, ‘Oh, that will never happen,’” Long said.

According to Long, Community Hospital Education Coordinator, Dodi Walters gave the project a big push and challenged the hospital to look at what other community resources would be available to make the outreach a possibility. 

“I called Dennis [Estes, city building and grounds superintendent] and I said, ‘Dennis, I want pickleball.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, me too. I’m standing on this concrete pad and I think it would be fantastic,’” Walters chuckled. 

Knowing the hospital couldn’t fund the project completely, they reached out to the foundation to chip in. 

Weis further explained he had hopes to add benches and a table to better service the community as well should there be enough of the donation left to do so.

“Just kind of seeing what other communities are doing with pickleball, it really is taking off and people are hosting pickleball tournaments and doing things,” Long said. “The more we make it to where it’s easy for people to use it, they will. Kind of like if you build it, they will come.” 

The pickleball courts will be open to the public once the sign which will read the area was made possible by a donation from the Community Healthcare Foundation, which Weis said shouldn’t take too much longer.