By Nicole Bode and Josh Williams
DNAinfo Staff
UPPER EAST SIDE — Little leaguers and softball players will have to find somewhere else to play after the Parks Department turned over public baseball fields under the Queensboro Bridge to an exclusive tennis club.
The Sutton East Tennis Club used to be allowed to set up a heated bubble with eight clay courts on the site between August and May only, but now they've been given permission to operate year-round.
So its goodbye free space, hello $180 an hour court rentals.
“The Parks Department should of came to us and they didn’t," said an outraged Community Board 8 member Barry Schneider at a meeting Thursday night, where representatives from the Parks Dept. and the tennis club presented the fait accompli.
"It’s a field of dreams and you burned it down.”
The Sutton East Tennis Club's bubble under the Queensboro Bridge. Softball players were granted permits to play at the Oval for the summer, overturning an agreement to operate the bubble year-round. (Jennifer Glickel / DNAinfo)
A department spokeswoman said they alerted the community board in April about their intentions to convert the land, and gave them two weeks notice about a Nov. 9 public hearing. A community board official said that wasn't enough time to alert the public about the looming change.
On Nov. 10, the city's Franchise Concession Review Committee, a multiagency panel that oversees private companies under contract to use city-owned land, voted to keep the tennis courts intact year-round.
Under the terms of the new lease, the tennis club also agreed to set aside free courts and free playing time. The Yorkville Youth Athletic Association, which has approximately 1,400 baseball players between the ages of 5 and 12 years old, will get four free hours a week on the courts.
The club charges between $110 and $180 for an hour of court time.
Sutton East Tennis Club's license holder, York Tennis LLC, also agreed to enter an estimated 10-year $2.6 million profit-sharing plan, as well as make at least $160,000 in renovations to the property, according to the committee's meetings minutes.
“It really makes more sense for it to be a tennis facility,” said Arlene Virga, executive director of the Yorkville Youth Athletic Association. “When it rains, it is extremely slippery so it is not a good place to play [baseball]."
The Sutton East Tennis Club's bubble under the Queensboro Bridge. (Jennifer Glickel / DNAinfo)
But some residents disagreed.
“All of my children learned to play little league ball there and my daughter still practices there today," Jean Bondy, who has lived in the neighborhood for 43 years, said at the meeting. "My husband and I sit and watch games together even when our kids are no longer playing. I feel safe, it’s a part of our community.”
The Parks Department also defended the decision.
“The decision was made by the Parks Department that it would be a good use of the facilities and an opportunity for year round concessions,” said Charles Kloth, the Parks Dept.'s director of concessions, at the meeting.
Kloth said he and other Parks representatives would come back to the board next month to clarify remaining questions.
“Parks department is going to have to make a determination, its out of my hands now,” said Tony Skolnick, managing director of the tennis club, who also teaches tennis at the facility. “There may be a couple hundred baseball players or softball players, but there are thousands of tennis players in the community that are happy that this thing is finally going to happen.”
