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Four courts at a club, six at a high school, two behind an HOA clubhouse: when the courts belong to a group, the order of the work matters as much as the coatings, and the plan has to survive a board vote.
Before / after photos coming
Signs it’s time
A commercial court project is any job where the courts belong to a group rather than a household: a club, a school, an HOA or community association, a parks and recreation department, a church, an apartment community. On each court, the work is the same acrylic work as anywhere else: cleaning, crack filling, patching low spots, resurfacer, color coats and lines, or a pickleball conversion. What changes is everything around it. There are more courts to sequence, more players to keep informed, a board or committee that has to approve the plan, and a coating season that sets the outer edges of the calendar.
The weather sets the calendar. Your courts set the order. The American Sports Builders Association (ASBA) puts most coating makers’ minimum at a surface temperature of 50 to 60°F and rising, and wants every coat able to dry completely on the day it goes down, with no rain on the way. Inside those limits, you decide which courts close first, which stay open for leagues, lessons or team practice, and whether the whole bank gets coated together so every court matches. That order gets agreed with you before the first court closes, and the weather can still move it.
Two courts have gone pale and slick while the others still look sharp. Fixing them one at a time, years apart, leaves a bank where no two courts look or play quite alike.
One or two courts sit unplayable after rain while the rest dry out, so every storm shrinks your schedule. ASBA counts water deeper than 1/16 inch, still standing after an hour of drying in 70°F sun, as a birdbath.
If pickleball players line up at the gate while tennis courts sit empty, the layout no longer fits who plays. For public sites with three or more tennis courts, USTA guidance looks first to courts dedicated to each sport, not blended lines.
Your reserve study, capital plan or budget cycle says the courts are due, and the board needs something to vote on: which courts, what work, in what order. The answers start with what each court needs, court by court.
Pickleball lines in the same white as the tennis lines make every close call harder. Where a sanctioning body allows blended lines, ITF guidelines call for the court’s own color family, a lighter shade and narrower lines.
The process
Every court is different, but the order of an acrylic job isn’t. Here’s the usual sequence, start to finish.
Note every crack, low spot, peel and worn line against its court number, so each court’s work is clear before anything is mixed. Then your facilities manager, club pro or committee chair can talk the list through with Bill at 215-251-2984.
Each court’s repairs, colors and lines get agreed with you before work starts, so everyone approving a multi-court job knows what each court gets. Plan any fence, net post, light or windscreen work at the same stage, so it doesn’t land on fresh coatings.
Decide which courts close first and which stay open for leagues, lessons, team practice or residents. Shade matters here: ASBA notes that losing the sun can change a surface’s temperature by more than 10°F, and cool coats dry slower, so save the warm days for shaded courts.
Each court in the group is washed, its cracks cleaned out and filled with acrylic filler, and its birdbaths flooded, outlined and patched. On a multi-court job, repairs across the whole group usually finish before any color goes down, so the coats can follow court to court.
Matching a bank of courts takes the same mix, the same sand and the same coats of acrylic resurfacer and textured color on every court, following the coating maker’s mixing instructions. The sand sets the pace, so matching it is what lets the courts play alike.
Tennis lines go down to ITF dimensions, measured to the outside of the lines. Pickleball lines follow USA Pickleball, measured to the outside of the perimeter and kitchen (non-volley zone) lines. One set of line colors across the bank means players moving between courts read them the same way.
Each court stays closed until the coating maker’s cure period has passed, so count that time in before announcing a reopening date. If the work is phased, the next group of courts closes after that.
The details
01Residential
If the court is in your own backyard, our residential court projects page fits you better. If you live in a community with shared courts, you have a voice in this: colors, pickleball lines and which courts close first are settled by your board or court committee, so raise your views there early. Pickleball sound is a fair question for homes near the courts, and the ASBA and USA Pickleball construction manual treats acoustics as a site consideration.
02Commercial
A club manager, an athletic director, an HOA or community association board, a parks and recreation department, a church committee, an apartment manager: whoever holds the keys needs three answers before work starts. Which courts close, in what order, and exactly what each court gets. Settle all three with Bill before the first court closes. No one can promise dates the weather hasn’t agreed to, so plan the order around the coating window and name one person on your side to answer players as courts close and reopen.
FAQ
Yes. Courts can close in groups while the rest stay in play, then the work moves to the next group. The tradeoff is appearance: if the phases land in different seasons, fresh color sits beside color that has already weathered, and the difference shows. Coating the whole bank at once gives the most even result. Open courts or matching courts: you decide which matters more, so weigh both with Bill before the board votes.
USTA Middle States puts the ideal window at April through October, depending on the weather. The edges of that window are the tight part. ASBA notes that near a coating’s minimum temperature, drying time stretches out, and falling temperatures and dew can affect how a coat forms. Work that has to finish before a fall season is easier to plan in summer than to squeeze into October. Call Bill at 215-251-2984 to plan the order.
Usually between seasons. PIAA District One, which runs playoffs for high schools in Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware counties, lists girls’ tennis as a fall sport and boys’ tennis as a spring sport, so school courts tend to be busy at both ends of the coating season. Summer falls between them, inside the window coatings need. Camps and community programs still need a plan, so tell us which courts they use.
With three or more tennis courts, USTA guidance for public sites looks first to courts dedicated to each sport, or other paved space, before blended lines. Converting one tennis court into dedicated pickleball courts, up to four on a 60 by 120 foot paved area at USA Pickleball’s 30 by 60 foot minimum, is one way to follow it. If your courts host USTA leagues, ask USTA Middle States about its line policy first.
Ahead of the color coats, wherever the calendar allows. Digging or coring near a court can damage a fresh surface, so fence, light, net post and windscreen work is worth lining up early. When you call Bill at 215-251-2984, bring the dates of any other work planned around the courts, so the coating window fits around them.