Gilford Selectboard approves upgrading ice rink, looks to add pickleball court

GILFORD — The town ice rink will be getting new side boards this winter, the next stage of a project to transform a facility seldomly used into one that will add pickleball courts, in an effort to see use throughout the year.

“The beauty of this project is that we are taking a facility that was used maybe 10 to 20 days a year as an ice rink, and I think it will now be used year-round once the pickleball courts are in there,” Town Administrator Scott Dunn said. “One of the conditions of the Land and Water Conservation Fund grant is that it is free and open to the public.”

The Gilford Selectboard voted 3-0 on Oct. 22, to accept a proposal from $137,786.76 from Sport Court Northeast, a company from North Andover, Massachusetts, with 30 years of experience in designing, installing and maintaining courts nationwide. Dunn said the former boards were “pretty dilapidated,” and this will be a huge upgrade.

“They’re hoping to get it in there and up and running by mid-December,” Dunn said in an interview following the meeting. “That is a function of having them manufacture it. That is done in Canada, and then it comes here for the installation process.”

Funding for the project came in part from a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant of $150,000.

Another part of the project involved removing all incandescent lighting and replacing it with LED lights. A lighting grant from Eversource amounting to $7,115 was approved at the last selectboard meeting.

The rink, located on Varney Point Road, has a roof but is otherwise open. Dunn said there is a brand-new concrete slab at the rink, as well, and the plan is to have five pickleball courts in the space.

“The slab has been poured, it’s cured, it’s curing. It has three more weeks of curing at this point in time,” said Selectboard Chair Kevin Hayes.

According to Hayes, both the acrylic surfacing and the colored lines of the pickleball courts will be installed in the spring. He said the surfacing needs to wait due to weather conditions; it needs to be 55 degrees or warmer during both the day and night.

While the selectboard had questions about the surfacing and line phase of the project, Dunn expects them to vote to award that contract at their next meeting. There were five bidders, and the lowest was Vermont Recreational Surfacing and Fencing, Inc., at $25,411.

The next selectboard meeting takes place at the Town Hall Conference Room at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 12.