Audubon Park Tennis

Audubon engaged key stakeholders and hosted two public meetings, in 2019 and in the beginning of 2020, to discuss tennis infrastructure, facilities and programming. We personally met with the Audubon Tennis Club, NOMATA, USTA, NORDC, Loyola, Tulane and neighbor groups in an effort to engage a wide variety of users and community stakeholders, and to ultimately develop a vision for Audubon tennis that reflects community need. We have met with members of the tennis community on numerous occasions, even at the tennis courts, to listen to concerns and ideas about court placement. Potential upgrades to the Audubon tennis facilities have been discussed at public Audubon Commission meetings. 

The highest priorities identified during the meetings and online comments were:

- The need for lights to accommodate evening tennis play
- Maintain clay courts
- Improve facilities such as restrooms, clubhouse, amenities
- Electronic reservation system
- Increased opportunity for lessons/play by younger and more diverse players

We also considered the following key elements: 

• Funding is required but not currently available 
• Audubon desires to meet the needs of the New Orleans tennis community 
• Audubon wishes to explore new opportunities to reach new players and introduce a lifelong sport to young players and explore new offerings, such as pickleball
• Audubon wishes to continue and expand our partnership with NORDC to reach more youth tennis players and more diverse players. 

Audubon has engaged Tulane University in discussions about a funding partnership, which will allow us to continue to provide high quality tennis to the public AND meet the Audubon and community priorities. 

Community partnerships are essential to providing meaningful impact. 

Elements of the proposed partnership we are exploring include (but are not limited to):

• At all times Audubon tennis will remain an open to the public tennis center for our entire community. Tulane is not “taking over” Audubon Tennis. 
• Upgrades will address areas of improvement for community tennis, including the addition of hard courts and preservation of clay courts, light installation, facility upgrades and improved technology 
• Tulane and Audubon will commit to engaging in outreach and support of youth tennis citywide, including but not limited to enhancing our partnership with NORDC. 

Please know that we are still in the planning phase and no final decisions have been made. There is no scheduled vote on this at the next Audubon Commission meeting on June 10.