During Tuesday’s meeting of the Brownwood Municipal Development District Board of Directors, a vote passed unanimously to allocate $60,000 toward the conversion of tennis courts to pickleball courts at Coggin Park. The Brownwood City Council will meet Tuesday, Oct. 25 where a vote on ratifying the measure is expected to be on the agenda.

BMDD Executive Director Ray Tipton told the board, “The City of Brownwood has budgeted, through Council priorities, quite a bit of improvements to Coggin Park this year. The two main facets of that are the tennis court area and the walking trails. As far as the tennis courts go the things that are going to happen are the resurfacing of the courts, new fencing around the old courts and improved lighting. There are three courts along the street side on two on the interior and the two interior courts have been makeshift converted to pickleball courts. There’s been a pretty big increase in demand for pickleball surfacing. The idea in talking with Council was keeping the three along the street side as tennis counts and completely resurface the other two as pickleball courts.

“For me, I think converting to pickleball courts is a good part of the project for the BMDD to participate in. What we’ve been doing with our park projects is bringing components to the parks that aren’t there. With the demand for pickleball, I feel that’s a good place to allocate part of the parks money to this year. The request for the MDD today is allocating $60,000 toward this project. Our portion would split the cost of the resurfacing and apply effectively to the pickleball portion of that. The City would pick up the rest including the fencing, the lighting and the new trails around the park.”

Tipton added that if the Council moves forward with the project at its next meeting, completion of the pickleball court resurfacing could be complete in March 2023.

Tipton also added the BMDD has $100,000 allocated toward park improvements, so additional money is available for any other potential projects.

Regarding updates on additional projects and activities, Tipton reported:

• Home 2 Suites has stopped moving dirt and has started on slab work, utility connections and storm drains.
• The Multipurpose Event Center project is in a similar phase as Home 2 Suites at the site of the former Ice House slab. Framing in the walls inside the event center has started, and certain rooms are beginning to take shape.
• Trafalgar Homes is also under construction. Several slabs have been poured and utility connections have been installed and some framing has begun as well.
• Lampasas Trucking closed on Tuesday and the property has been transferred. Additional equipment is expected to be added to the site soon.
• Boot Barn received its certificate of occupancy this week and stocking of inventory is expected to begin soon. Estimates are Boot Barn will open before Thanksgiving, but there has been no confirmation with the City yet.
• T.J Maxx is not as far along as Boot Barn, as it is supposed to submit its final flood proofing plan to the City Wednesday.
• Freddy’s Frozen Custard and Steakburgers has submitted its final plans to City Hall and construction is expected to begin relatively soon.
• The restroom trailer that will be used at downtown events has arrived and is located at the City Service Center. The fleet department is taking care of all necessary registrations and improvements needed.

In other news during Tuesday’s meeting, Tipton reported the Brownwood sales tax report for October was up 12% from a year ago. Such a high positive number came as a surprise as Tipton stated, “We didn’t even budget for a 1% increase.”

Also during Tuesday’s meeting, the board elected new officers. Daniel Hutson will again serve as president, Lynn Day will be vice president and Marisha Stidom will be secretary.