Tennis Center Opens
- Livable El Cerrito
- Jun 23
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 10
About 70 people filled new bleachers, benches, and the lawn on June 13 at the grand opening for the new tennis viewing and assembly area in Arlington Park. The event came after eight years of planning, persuading, fundraising, and plain old hard work.
The new El Cerrito Tennis Center is located between the tennis courts and the Arlington Park Clubhouse. It includes a kiosk for posting information, picnic tables, retaining wall, redesigned plantings, a brick patio, and a new pathway from the handicapped parking space on Arlington Boulevard to the clubhouse and the tennis center.
Park Improvements Donated to the City
The project was done through a partnership between the El Cerrito Tennis Club (ECTC) and the city of El Cerrito. At the June 13 grand opening ceremony, Bob Guletz, chair of the club’s tennis center committee, donated the improvements “to the city of El Cerrito for the enjoyment of the entire tennis community.”
City Councilmember Lisa Motoyama thanked the tennis club, saying “I’m so pleased to see another project completed by volunteers in our city.”
Tennis club member Kathy Curran took the microphone from Guletz to say that the project could not have been completed without his great leadership. Guletz in turn thanked city staff, including Recreation Director Chris Jones and Public Works Program Manager Karineh Samkian, who served as liaison for the project for the last three years.
The project isn’t just beautification, Guletz said, although it does achieve that.
Safety and access have been improved with removal of a diseased tree and construction of the new path which meets current requirements of ADA (the Americans with Disabilities Act).
And the area near the courts is now more functional for larger events like U.S. Tennis Association tournaments and informal drop-in tennis events that draw larger groups.
Before the project, tall hedges grew the full length of the path next to the courts, blocking the view and creating a tight squeeze for people who gathered to play in or watch matches.
“There was really no place where we could assemble at the start an event and talk about how it was going to go,” said Guletz.
How It Got Started
A committee was formed and Guletz was the chair. In 2018 he started meeting with the recreation director to present the committee’s vision.
Back then the city was holding public meetings and developing a revised park and recreation master plan, and the concept of the tennis center was incorporated into the master plan in 2019.
The tennis center committee developed a proposal and ultimately presented it to Parks and Recreation Commission, which approved it.
Quite soon it became apparent that the project would trigger upgrades to meet current ADA standards. The biggest expense was improving the path to the new tennis area.
The city agreed to pay for all ADA-mandated improvements.
City Paid $23,671; Tennis Club Raised $50,000
Will Provost, assistant to the city manager, said the total cost for the ADA improvements, including upgrades to the path, wheelchair accessible table, and site prep was $23,671. The city received a $5,000 U.S. Tennis Association grant that partially offset these costs.
The tennis center committee raised $50,000 to pay for the rest of the work, which was done by private contractor Villagomez Landscaping and by the members themselves. In the week before the opening, some tennis committee members brought their tools to construct the kiosk.
During the fundraising phase, more than 100 people paid for tribute bricks that now comprise the patio. Bricks cost $100 for small bricks and $180 for large ones. The bricks personalize the patio with family names and a variety of quotations.
The sale of seven plaques for benches and bleachers raised another $14,000. Some of the contributors were Olivero Plumbing Co., MAJ Realtors, Benchmark Pizzeria, Mechanics Bank, the Richmond Grocery Outlet, and a donation from Sarah Robinson in memory of Peter Rugh, a former tennis player.
Another $8,000 was raised when tennis pro Marcos Manqueros offered to put on a summer of tennis clinics for the club in 2023 and donate all fees to the tennis center fund, Guletz said.
Manqueros grew up in Berkeley and El Cerrito and learned to play tennis on El Cerrito city tennis courts. (He learned mostly at Castro and Tassajara courts, he said, because he and his siblings rode their bikes to play tennis.)
Manqueros grew up to attend Stanford, then business school at UC Berkeley and took a job at Hewlett Packard. But he didn’t love it as much as tennis. Eventually he traveled to Asia and became a tennis pro in Hong Kong. Manqueros was director of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club for 10 years, he said.
He learned about the El Cerrito Tennis Club fundraising when he came back to visit and coach in Berkeley, and that’s when he decided to help by offering tennis clinics.
Manqueros and other teachers with his Crouching Tiger Academy now teach tennis for the El Cerrito Parks and Recreation Department.
Donations for the tennis center also came from a half-dozen individuals who gave $500 to $1,000 each; a group that played tennis regularly prior to 2018 called the Arlington Hackers; a club member who put on a seminar and donated the proceeds; and $2,000 left over from the 1990s when the El Cerrito tennis club worked with the city to build a third tennis court. The remaining balance of $2,000 had been in a city fund for more than 20 years.
Public-Private Partnership
The tennis center committee worked closely with many city departments that had review or approval requirements.
Stephen Pree, environmental programs manager, helped to plan removal of hedges and a diseased alder tree along with adding native plantings, Guletz said.
The key to success in the venture as a private group was working together with the city, Guletz said. After the opening ceremony ended with a ribbon cutting, Guletz led the audience in a cheer: “Public-private partnership!”
Anyone Can Join or Just Play
The El Cerrito Tennis Club is a 75-year-old organization with members from throughout the East Bay. Guletz, for instance, is a resident of Albany. The ECTC “home courts” are at Arlington Park but members play at other city courts.
Anyone can join for a fee of $75 per year.
The club’s website is here. https://www.ectennis.org/
The city of El Cerrito owns tennis courts at Cerrito Vista, Tassajara, Harding, and Canyon Trail parks as well as Arlington Park. Anyone can play on them.
Court reservations are not required, but courts can be reserved on the city’s website for a fee.
Players with reservations have priority over others.
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