Chase Road Park Is Being Rebuilt as the Racquet Club It Used to Be

For years the best-known thing at 355 Chase Road was a basketball hoop in the parking lot. The Philadelphia Inquirer described the former Picket Post Swim Club as a property with tennis courts and "a popular parking lot basketball hoop that drew a crowd after hours," long after the pool had stopped being a reason to visit.

That hoop shows up once in Tredyffrin Township's paperwork, as a footnote. In the township's updated Schedule of Values for the park, dated August 12, 2026, the first court on the list is labeled "Tennis Court 1," with an asterisk that reads "Originally proposed as Basketball Court."

The footnote sums up the project. The 4.8-acre site is coming back as the racquet club it was built to be, and the budget spends heavily on that purpose. The general-park features that once filled the long-range plan have been cut back.

The Budget, Line by Line

The township approved a $1,770,000 proposal from S.B. Conrad, Inc. at its May 20, 2026 meeting, and work began in late May. A May 12 staff memo shows the contract was bought through Pennsylvania's COSTARS cooperative purchasing program. By August, staff had trimmed the total to $1,676,436, and the document notes that the numbers are "subject to change."

Here is how the updated Schedule of Values splits that figure:

The three court sections add up to $713,579, about 43 cents of every contract dollar. The Inquirer reports that the finished park will have four tennis courts, six pickleball courts, a bathroom building, a storage barn, a pavilion and a grassy area for community use. The paper also notes that early in the acquisition, the township talked about turning the site into "a long-requested racquet sports center, for which it was already outfitted."

The Court Fences Cost More Than the Pavilion

The fence lines in the court sections are the clearest sign of what this park is built around. Tennis Court 1's fence is budgeted at $80,000, the pickleball fence at $75,000 and Tennis Court 2's fence at $82,000. That is $237,000 for court fencing alone, compared with $158,190 for the entire pavilion. A separate $91,090 line covers stockade fencing.

Those fences are there to control noise, and the township planned for that early on. Its June 2025 phasing plan already said "new sound insulating walls will be installed." Board chair David Miller told the Inquirer that the township chose a better fence with sound-dampening material "to snuff out the bouncing of pickleballs," and that the new fence had to go deeper into the ground than the old posts did. These courts sit in what Miller described to SAVVY Main Line as "one of the densest parts of Chesterbrook." In that setting, the fence does more than any other single item to make six pickleball courts workable.

Miller gave other reasons for rising costs in the same interview. The courts were in worse shape than expected and had to be rebuilt from scratch, and the old bathroom building was "vandalized pretty heavily," so it is being torn down and replaced. The new restroom is budgeted at $190,190, including $35,000 for plumbing.

What the August Revision Took Out

When staff cut $93,564 from the contract, most of the reductions came from the parts of the park meant for people who are not there to play:

• Walking path: cut from $10,000 to zero
• Benches: cut from $12,000 to zero
• Water fountain: reduced from $12,000 to $8,000
• Pole barn paving: cut from $10,000 to zero
• Pavilion and restroom roofs: each reduced by $5,000
• Tennis Court 2 paving: reduced by $27,000

These cuts mean more next to the original vision. The June 2025 phasing plan described a third phase with a community garden that had individual plots, water access and tool storage. It also included a picnic pavilion with shade, seating, electricity and the potential for rentals; internal paths, benches and tables; and a compacted-grass trail of roughly 200 feet connecting to Wilson Farm Park. The pavilion survived. The paths and benches are out of the current contract. According to the Inquirer, the basketball court, most likely a half court, is tabled while the board considers it, as is a path and bridge to Wilson Farm Park. Both would add cost.

For anyone who pictured a walking loop off Chase Road, or an easy stroll from Wilson Farm Park to the new courts, the first version of this park will not include either.

How a Racquet Club Ended Up Back Where It Started

The site's history explains why courts came first. In June 2018, SAVVY Main Line reported that Picket Post had closed its Chase Road pool "three summers ago," which puts the pool's closing around 2015. The club's tennis program kept running after the pool closed. That same month, Main Line Media News quoted club president John McFadden: "The only way we can save this club is to sell it." The paper reported that the pool needed $500,000 in repairs and the courts $128,000.

A developer bought the parcel and asked to rezone it for housing. The township said no, and according to the Inquirer, the property then deteriorated for years. On April 1, 2025, the Board of Supervisors enacted an ordinance authorizing the use of eminent domain to acquire 355 Chase Road for a public recreation park. The township made an initial payment of $625,000. The case is still in the courts, and the final price could be higher depending on a judge's ruling.

So the park inherited courts, a parking lot, a bathroom building and a waiting pavilion. The phasing plan's second stage was always about restoring those: resurfacing the courts, repaving the lot, repairing or replacing the restrooms and repainting the existing pavilion. The current contract is that second stage done all at once, with a new barn added.

Why It Happened All at Once

The plan originally spread the work over several years. The Inquirer traced the change. The park first appeared in the 2026 preliminary budget at about $400,000 for the year, part of an initial estimate of $1.3 million over time. The final 2026 budget raised that to $725,000, and in May the board approved roughly $1.7 million. Miller told the paper that staff found it more cost-effective to do most of the work in one year. Including the land, the township estimates it will spend at least $2.3 million, paid from the regular operating budget, with anything beyond normal tax revenue drawn from a general fund of about $18 million.

Residents have disagreed in public about this. The Inquirer reported that some questioned the size of the increase, the amount of public input and the township's use of COSTARS instead of competitive bidding. Miller said the township was within its rights to use the program. On the other side, Joanna Fisher of the Chesterbrook Civic Association told the paper, "We went through 10 years of a derelict property in our neighborhood and we are grateful" that the work was not being phased in.

The decision to do everything at once is also what put the courts ahead of everything else. Doing the restoration in a single push meant funding the existing racquet facility in full, and the extras became the obvious items to trim when the numbers were revised in August.

What Is Still Undecided

The township's project page still gives an estimated completion of late 2026. It also says the park may open for use while remodeling continues, with upgrades in stages. As of this week, several questions about the finished park remain open:

1. Basketball. A half court is tabled, so the after-hours hoop has no confirmed replacement yet.
2. The Wilson Farm Park link. The path and bridge are still under consideration. The phasing plan routed the trail over both township and private parcels.
3. The name. The Inquirer reported in August that the township was working on an agreement for Miller to buy the park's naming rights for $625,000, the same amount as the initial land payment. Miller said the park would not be named after him, and that he would drop his bid if another donor stepped forward.
4. The final land price. That is up to the court handling the eminent domain case.

For now, the first version of Chase Road Park will open with rebuilt courts behind sound-dampening fences, a new restroom, a barn, a pavilion and a repaved lot, all on the same footprint as the club that closed its pool around 2015.

When a neighborhood landmark changes like this, I start reading line items the way I'd read a renovation budget. If you live near the courts and want to talk through what the park could mean for your own street, Brent Lyle Erickson would be glad to compare notes. Let's Connect.