The Town of Essex is putting a call out to community partners.
The town is looking for partners to put their names on the new tennis and pickleball courts planned for Harrow.
They are seeking naming-rights sponsors as it prepares to move the courts from their current location beside the Harrow Arena to the Harrow Soccer Complex.
The new facility is expected to include four outdoor pickleball courts, two tennis courts, accessible pathways and player amenities, with naming options for each court.
The town has already budgeted $600,000 for the project and recently adopted a sponsorship and naming-rights policy.
Essex mayor Sherry Bondy says the existing courts have reached the end of their life.
“This is a brand new feature that we are relocating our pickleball and tennis courts from beside the Harrow Arena. They’ve outgrown their life expectancy and the base hasn’t been good for a number of years. So we’ve had to fill it with cracks and we really needed to relocate them so that in the future if we want to expand onto the Harrow Arena, we can.”
She says there are also smaller sponsorship opportunities available.
“They can look at doing an individual court, a couple courts, or we also have smaller things that I want to remind people of. You can sponsor trees, you can sponsor benches. We want to see more trees, we want to see more benches around, so you don’t have to have mega dollars to have your name at the Town of Essex. We’re looking for a variety of ways.”
Bondy says they’re leaving the call open for a few months.
“It needs to be built. If it takes a little bit of time for somebody to come forward, the courts need to go in, the signage for the naming rights will be the last thing that goes on. The courts need to be built first. So that’s why we have a long window of opportunity for businesses and for the word to get out there. And then if any partners want to step forward, we’ll of course work with them no matter what scale they’d like to help us with.”
Construction of the new courts is anticipated to begin in 2026.
The town says the new facility is also expected to reduce ongoing maintenance costs, after spending upwards of $15,000 in some years maintaining the aging Harrow courts.
Expressions of interest for naming rights will be accepted until December 31, with more information on the Town of Essex website.