Leaders Breaks Ground on $11 Million Tuscaloosa Tennis Center Expansion

It was a joyous if very windy day at Jaycee Park in Alberta City Thursday afternoon as community leaders officially broke ground on an $11 million project to transform the Tuscaloosa Tennis Center.

This phase of the project will add 17 new outdoor tennis courts and dramatically upgrade Jaycee Park, demolishing decades-old restrooms and installing new ones and a concession stand, plus a shaded pavilion and enhancements to the walking trail including new path and top-notch lighting and security cameras.

A later Phase 2 is expected to expand the indoor tennis center and add even more outdoor courts, making Tuscaloosa a new destination for hobbyists and professionals alike.

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This part of the project, funded by mayor Walt Maddox's Elevate Tuscaloosa plan, is expected to be completed next fall, and Hall-Taylor Construction is already working on the site to clear and grade dirt for the future courts.

"The city has many missions and we do many different things at the city. Our core function is public safety - police and fire. That is our core function. Our next function is infrastructure. Roads, water, sewer, stormwater, drainage," Mayor Maddox said. "But we also have another function and that's quality of life and that's why we're here today. To be truly called a community, you have to have great quality of life. Today, the improvements at Jaycee Park and the expansion of the Tuscaloosa Tennis Center, that speaks to our quality of life."

Maddox thanked his entire city council for continuing to back the improvements funded by Elevate, but especially council president Kip Tyner, who represents the Alberta area and has long championed its improvement, especially in the wake of the 2011 tornado that devastated 60 percent of his district.

Tyner remembered after the tornado, while he was fighting an extremely difficult battle with cancer, he and Maddox broke ground on the existing tennis center and knew then that even better things were on the horizon.

"I was fixing to head out to Arkansas for a long, almost one-year battle and all I could think about, when I was in Little Rock during some of those terrible, terrible days, was days like today, because I had to get better. I've got to beat this stuff, and I've got to get back home, because we have so much more work to do for Alberta," Tyner said tearfully. "So this is an emotional day. It's just a very incredibly special day for those who see this work being done already -I can't believe it, it's so exciting. This is going to transform the whole park."

A large crowd also heard from Brian Davis, the executive director of the Tuscaloosa County Park & Recreation Authority, and from Mike Goldammer, who left a management role in the United States Tennis Association to take over the TTC in 2018.

Since then, the center has grown from about 80 members to more than 450, and Goldammer said more than 1,000 others patronize the center without a full paid membership.

Goldammer said his goal is to make the Tennis Center the best-in-class program provider in the entire Southeast.

He thanked the council, his wife and sons, the 22 staff members working for him, Maddox, Davis and more for this incredible investment and said he can't wait to continue growing the program with the state-of-the-art expansion.

"This is a collective effort and we cannot wait to kick butt and take names here," Goldammer said. "If anybody knows me, they know that there's something I like to say when I get excited and I'm going to say it now - let's go!!"

For more coverage of this and other Elevate projects, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.