03-15-24  Dateline Detroit -   The Belle Isle courts are available for play.

We visited the BI courts the other day. They are actually clean, in decent shape and playable now.

MHA met with Ali Sayed of Hype Athletics a couple of weeks ago. Hype manages the handball courts for the state. As you may know, the state completed renovations of the courts. This included beautification of the area, repairing and painting the entire structure including block walls, and installing metal caps. Unfortunately, they condemned and removed the ceiling. Arggghhhhh!

Ali expressed a positive desire to make the courts more user friendly.

The #1 item on our list was ceiling netting to keep errant balls in the court area. He agreed to supply the labor and lift rental to install ceiling netting if we would donate the materials.

Based on that promise, the MHA has purchased 12 - 20' x 20’ nets and the hardware to install them. The netting is 22 mm (3/4”) knotless black mesh,  and rot resistant. Strong enough to stop any handball from exiting the court area.

In a nutshell, 1/8” marine grade cabling will be run along the walls and across the beam that’s at half-court. 

Another 20' x 20’ will extend from there up the existing guy wires to cover the entire court area. Then the nets will be attached with 2” carabiners.

Hype Athletics  is scheduling the install before April 10.  My guess is that it will take at least three days. That said, he is using in-house labor. Ali invited MHA to be there on day one to approve the process.

Other items… We spoke with him about re-caulking the floor to wall seams. He agreed to do this and is supplying the self-leveling caulk and foam backing rod to do the job. He agreed to repaint the court lines. I haven’t gotten commitment on a time frame for these two items.

Hype purchased about 6 park benches for the courts. These along with the benches Pete Mann made will be a most welcome addition. 

The floors. Actually not in bad shape. As much as Hype is lobbying the state to lay new cement, we doubted the viability of that option based on history. Plus it would delay court play for the year. Bad idea. We suggested a more realistic solution. Hire a professional to clean and fill the cracks in the east (back) courts. Also get a cost to mud-jack the one court that’s had heaving. We encouraged him doing this work with experienced labor as opposed to DIY.

We also suggested he power-wash the floors. This should be done after the old caulk is removed, and before the lines are repainted. We are planning to schedule a day to remove the existing caulk and power wash the floors. This will expedite the process. If you are interested in volunteering for this, please get in touch. 

The storage room. He is reluctant to give us access to the room. Concerned about damage, theft, etc. That said, maybe he can be swayed over time.

There is new water fountain. The water is not on currently, but should be after freeze concerns. Of course if the courts are to be power-washed, that has to work. The workings of the electricity / lighting he is unsure of. As I can recall, the pole lights used to short out the system.

We asked about installing a permanant grill outside of the fenced court area. Ali is protective of the area being about sports play. So he’s opposed to this, thinking it will attract people who are not players, but just park bar-b-cuers. I think he’s overthinking it, and said if we had access to the storage room we could keep grills there. We’ll see.

The fence. There's a need to repair the gates and support one pole that’s come apart. We expect he’ll attend to it. He did install a base-board on the back court area to keep balls from rolling out of the court area, and plans on doing the same on the front courts.

Play on!

Stewart Shevin

MHA Secretary