Building and sustaining the Northern Arizona Tennis Center (NAZTC), a world-class and earth-friendly facility, is at the heart of the ACES mission. The NAZTC is an ambitious project that will take years of planning and many more years to complete, but it is a worthwhile endeavor with tremendous benefits for the sport and NAZ communities.
The NAZTC Website (www.naztc.com) is under construction and will feature conceptual designs and drawings, along with related information as it becomes available (e.g., pledge programs, donations, partnerships, investment funds, location options and rationale, project processes and procedures, etc.).
Tennis growth and development is significantly hindered in NAZ because it does not have large tennis centers and corresponiding social networks that cultivates a tennis culture, as do urban areas such as Phoenix, AZ, Tucson, AZ, and Albuquerque, NM. To the contrary, most NAZ communities have only a few tennis courts, typically at public parks where the courts are not well (if at all) maintained and usually number only 1-4 courts per site. There are a few "larger" NAZ tennis facilities (maybe 8 courts), but they are part of private clubs and do not have the scale of facilities desired in the NAZTC.
NAZ needs a premier, all-weather tennis center to host professional tournaments, major collegiate events, national-level sanctioned adult and junior tournaments, USTA league championships, and numerous tennis programs that will stimulate tennis growth and development on local, regional, and national levels.
The NAZTC has an additional and unique challenge in that it must effectively integrate tennis organizations, businesses, and clubs, each of which plays an important role in growing and developing the sport. The NAZTC must compliment and support, not over-shadow, these important contributors.
How big is big enough? Most major tennis centers have 20-30 courts, to include stadium courts as well as indoor courts for locations subject to winter weather and/or monsoonal rains. The NAZTC seeks to have at least 30 hard courts: 1 one large stadium court, 8 small stadium courts, 8 indoor courts, and other outdoor courts (to include quick start courts).
And NAZ has so much to offer the southwest U.S.! Cool summer temperatures are a welcome alternative for players who must compete in tournaments where the heat index (measure of temperature and relative humidity) is frequently above 110oF (values above 100oF are considered dangerous). In the winter, why not get some skiing in between matches? And then there is high altitude. High altitude tennis adds some unique challenges to the sport (e.g., player conditioning, ball control), as do different court surfaces (hard, clay, omni, grass).