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(Comments and Edits by web-editor, Bill Boyes)
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From Bill Boyes - January 26th, 2011: Nidy court refinishing continues to go well, but we will still have to play at Mainland until next week. There is a chance to resume scoring on Saturday Jan. 29, but we cannot plan on that, unfortunately. Two days ago, Nidy' finished up painting the white lines on our courts. Bob Finta and I worked behind them after the lines were dry, spraypainting the yellow and black "reminder" dots at the ends of the kitchens. While we were waiting for the Nidy workers at one point, were were impressed with the care they were taking in getting clean sharp lines with no fuzzy areas. They even cleaned up a few spots by masking off the white and touching up the green background color. I expressed my appreciation for their care and pride in doing a near-perfect job. The Nidy workers continued with painting the end-aprons, and as lf yesterday evening that is still to be finished along with the gutters and finally the wax sealler (We call it Nella-seal, but they use a different product.)
From Bill Boyes - January 21st, 2011: Nidy's
work in grinding, repainting and adding lines, is almost complete. Still to
be done are the lines on courts 1-4 and 17-20, then painting of all aprons an
gutters, then Nella-seal on the court surfaces.
The city is working on
installing new court side-boards, and new or repainted facia-boards on the court
shelters. All the gutters on the shelters have been removed, apparently for
aesthetic purposes, and there seems to be no plan to replace them, and no plan
to add gutters to to the new shelters (which did not have gutters specified
in their design). Gutters are a maintenance problem for the city, according
to NSB Parks and Rec., because some of the local youths like to swing on them,
and then they (the gutters) sag and have to be refastened. However, gutters
seem very useful to the people who want to play shuffleboard after a light rain
or heavy dew, without getting wet from drips off a shelter roof.
On
the plus side, we are thankful that the city has installed a new sink in the
Men washroom. The old one was badly rusted.
From Bill Boyes - January 12th, 2011: Court resurfacing began Tuesday (Jan 11th).Please play at Mainland courts until further notice. When work has completed, we will post notice at Mainland about resumption of play at Coronado - expected about January 22nd.
From Bill Boyes - January 8th, 2011: Happy New Year! Apparently court resurfacing work will begin next week (Jan 10th). If you drop by the Coronado courts and see work is taking place then please proceed to Mainland courts for play. When work has completed, we will post notice at Mainland about resumption of play at Coronado.
From Bill Boyes - December 29th: We were premature by a day or two, but received the OK from NSB Parks and Rec the week before Christmas. Contractors are still working on the roof of the new public washrooms The old (rotted) shelter over the bleachers has been removed - as a safety measure. No further work on the courts has been started, but WE'RE SHUFFLING! I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, and wish you a Happy New year. We will try to keep this updated as we get more news..
From Bill Boyes - December 15th: Completion of work by contractors will be inspected this week, and we anticipate being able to use our courts immediately afterward. There is still some maintenance work for the city to look after, but we believe this should not stop us from playing at Coronado once again. Item a): The City plans to tear down of the shelter over the bleachers. We feel there are some other obvious work items to complete:: b) repair the damaged section of roofing at the north end (foot) of court 4; c) repair the gutters at the north end of courts 1 - 4, and 13 - 17; d) Install gutters on new shelters (They were designed with no gutters and we know what will happen without gutters on cool mornings or after a light rain - water dripping on our heads for an hour!) e) Three scoreboards must be repositioned, both for safety and the convenience (necessity) of keeping all the scoreboards on the "yellow" side. (Have you ever mistakenly erased the wrong scoreboard during a tournament because it was on the wrong side of the adjacent court?). Nidy's court resurfacing work will be delayed, apparently until January. We don't know any details of needed ancillary work such as replacing damaged edging boards (e.g. court 16 and 20 etc.).
From Bill Boyes - December 8th: Some pictures of newly completed work are new posted on our Photo Page... Tuesday Dec. 7th afternoon the construction fence was removed, but in checking with Liz Yancy of NSB Parks and Rec., we should not use the courts just yet as work is still going on. I will check with Liz on Friday (Dec 10) for a further update.
Message form Bill Boyes - November 27th:
In the past two weeks the light standards have
arrived and been erected. The "sidewalk" between courts 4 and 5 running
between the cue-house and the street has been re-paved. I'm not sure if this
will be a functional sidewalk as one of the light standards is right in the
middle! There is shill lots of interlocking brick piled around, so there is
still work to be done before Nidy can get started.
Cheers for now - Bill.
Message from Bill Boyes - November 6th: Having now arrived in New Smyrna Beach from my northern home, and seen the "construction" site first hand, I was disappointed with the progress. We are hoping for a completion date of mid-December, and will remain optimistic. We will continue to rely on playing at the Mainland courts for both daily activities as well as our scheduled tournaments.
Message from Bill Boyes - October 7th: In spite of recent spurts of activity, we now feel that mid-to-late November is a realistic expectation for once again playing at our own courts. Until then we will continue to rely on playing at the Mainland courts.
I just got another update from Phil. The walls of the bathrooms are up. The
concrete in the gutters have been poured. The drain pipes opened up.
The
paving blocks for the path from Pine Street to the cue house are ready for placement.
The supports for all the court covers (8 inch brick-type)
have been erected.
Phil says there has been a lot of activity in the last 2 days. (The
time element becoming important maybe. GOOD NEWS!).
Guys,
I forwarded Butch's email to Dean Shoemaker (contractor) along with
my concerns. He sent along his thoughts: "Bob, The canisters, if we are
on the same page, are actually clean-outs to get to the drainlines below. The
top of them will be flush with the gutter concrete once it is poured back in
place. This should solve the problem!" (A great sigh
of relief here, with the hope that truly "flush" it will be. - BB)
I just got off the phone with Phil who spoke to me from the construction site. He says that things are moving along, but slowly. The bathroom area is set up and the footings are in. The old scoreboards have been removed. Phil is very satisfied with how things are going though he is concerned about the time element.
Concrete has been poured in all the footings for the supports to the additional canopy over the foot of courts 17-20, 5-8 and the head of 5-8.
The other very noticeable elements are in the alleys between courts 6 & 7, 8 & 9, 10 & 11, 17 & 18 and between 20 and the walkway. (I didn't get a look at the alleys between 1 and 5 and 13 thru 16) Anyway there are two large round fixtures, one placed at each end of the alleys in question, set in a few feet from the base lines. These canisters sit pretty high and may be higher than the adjacent courts. I'm afraid my description is lacking but hopefully you get the picture. My only thought is that these canisters may be associated with lighting stanchions. (See information from Bob Finta Sept 22nd) That's all for now other than the floor for the lavatory has been poured.
(In response to a concern voiced by Butch about apparent
work on court gutters)
I just spoke to Dean Shoemaker and he said
they have many references for the depth and slope of the gutter. He knew about
the dimensions. He said that he was pouring the cement for the gutters and for
the bathrooms in the next week. He was rather casual about an estimated completion
date..." a few months." I reminded him about our season starting mid
October. He assured me that everything on his end would be OK.
I don't know what else I could do to urge him on, but my experience has been
that vendors often give an exaggerated estimated completion to keep customers
from making repeated calls.
Bob
Hi All,
I just got a report from Phil (Wade).
He says that the construction company has leveled a place in the park for the
bathroom. They have also torn up the gutters between courts 2 and 3, 6 and 7,
9 and 10, 14 and 15, 18 and 19. He said that the concrete is about 8 - 10 inches
thick with steel rebars. They don't build them like they used to. I imagine
that is for the drainage. He thinks that paving stones to match those on Flagler
will be placed there. I hope that they are going to be smooth so that disks
don't hit them and fracture. I'll call and check on Monday. (Aug
24) GOOD NEWS on the paving Stones - they are for replacing the sidewalks, not
the gutters.
They seem to be making faster progress than we thought. I don't imagine they'll take more than a month to finish the job especially if all the concrete is that thick.
Talk to you soon.
Bob
Things are beginning to jell here on two fronts. The old light poles are gone
and Phil says the place already looks much better. The construction company
have broken up the concrete outside (east side) of the cue house and have a
load of bricks piled up....they'll match up the brick sidewalk on the street.
Should look really great. I don't think it'll take 2 months to finish the job
since they're working on the outhouse and the covers at the same time. So progress
is evident...finally!!
I was by the courts at 9:30 am. They are fenced in all the way around the property only one gate. The south side extends about 8 feet out into the existing parking area. The restaurant crowd will be upset, I suspect. I believe we can say they have actually started. (YAY!)
Fellow Shufflers,
It gives me great pleasure to announce that the upgrade/improvements have finally been started at our courts. It has taken 12 years to raise the money and negotiate with the city to upgrade our facility. Yesterday the city fenced in the courts thereby preventing anyone from using the facility and a portable toilet for the use of the workmen has been placed in the park. (A sure indication that real work will be starting soon.)
I handed the city's engineer/architect a "wish list" as per his request a while back. I have no idea how much we will get, but the club has already gotten the heater/ac unit for the clubhouse, 20 new sets of seasoned disks, and a contract with Nidy to refinish all the courts. Liz from P & R is checking out the bids to see if 20 regulation scoreboards are on the list. The lighting (in the contract, covering courts five through twelve) will be stadium lights rather than the individual lights. The old (ugly, rusty, dilapidated) lighting system will be removed. French drains (between courts five - twelve) will be installed. Naturally, the permanent bathroom in the park will be included (to be located at the entrance to the parking lot. The local merchants had been asking for this for a long time, to handle "needs" during parades etc. as well as everyday pedestrians.). Hopefully, when you see CSC again it will have covers (sun shelters at the ends of courts) for all the courts (including courts 5 - 8, foot of 17 - 20), fresh paint on the aprons and gutters, newly finished courts, plus other improvements.
As you know Carol and I have taken up summer residence in a retirement village in Maryland near our son. We plan on returning in October. We enjoyed the thought of leaving behind in Florida the threat of hurricanes. So far here in MD we have experienced a heat spell of over 103 degrees, a severe microburst with 70 mph winds and rain, and an earthquake of 3.2 magnitude. Ben misses FL and is planning on spending 3 months. Phil, Carl, and Butch have been filling me in on progress there. Please let me know what's happening in your life and I'll include it in my next update.
Enjoy your summer. See you on the courts.
Bob