By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

Two new bocce ball courts will be installed at the Ocean Pines Yacht Club next week for a total project cost of $50,692, community officials said late last month.

Earlier this year, the Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors approved a staff recommendation to allow an outside contractor, Southwest Greens Delaware Valley, to construct two new bocce courts at the community’s Yacht Club, where a similar play area used to sit.

Recreation & Parks Director Debbie Donahue hopes the project will be completed by Memorial Day, with play beginning in June. OPA Public Works began preparing the site for the new courts on April 18.

“They have done the demolition for the one court that was at the Yacht Club,” Donahue said. “Now there are going to be two courts. They are going to be side by side, kind of end to end.”

According to the recreation director, a league has been formed with around 88 members signed up and even more substitutes. She added that the rec and parks department intends to launch a fall bocce group in addition to the summer program.

“This is a new, exciting program that we are offering,” Donahue said.

OPA General Manager John Viola noted that the new bocce league has outpaced platform tennis in terms of membership. The new bocce group boasts around 100 members, while platform tennis has 50 to 60. Still, while platform tennis is growing, Viola said to “put that into perspective.”

At a March board meeting, Viola maintained that he expects the bocce initiative to yield a return on investment in under a decade.

“With memberships, a projection of 100 members…they will break even somewhere around the sixth year, the seventh year,” he said.

That estimate could decrease when considering ancillary income from bocce members’ food and beverage purchases, Viola added.

The bocce courts will be made of synthetic materials.

OPA officials considered synthetic and natural materials, but they settled on synthetic because it is less maintenance-intensive than the alternative option.

“The two courts we are proposing to build are synthetic,” said Mike Galello, the Ocean Pines bocce ball club director, in March. “We are doing it right, so we have 10 years on this court before it even needs maintenance. That’s the advantage of going synthetic versus natural. Natural, you need constant maintenance like you need to roll it. Synthetic is where we need to be.”

The courts will be ready for play at the beginning of the summer season.