The Flower Mound Town Council unanimously approved improvements to Leonard and Helen Johns Community Park that includes more tennis courts, a playground, an amphitheater, more trails and a pond boardwalk.
“The tennis community has had a long wait, so I think it is about time,” said Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam Schiestel. “It looks great to me and it looks like we aren’t consuming much area that didn’t have either a building or parking lot on it, so we’re not disrupting the natural area.”
The parking lot and new tennis courts are planned to be built on the footprint of where the old Lewisville ISD natatorium and administration building stood, according to Flower Mound’s Director of Parks and Recreation Chuck Jennings.
It was an attempt to ensure the nature of the park was maintained, which was brought up as a concern when the plan went to the Planning and Zoning Commission.
Landscape Architect David Shipp represented MHS Planning+Designing, the firm tasked with designing the park’s improvements.
“We took great pains to ensure that we were preserving all the natural canopy out there,” he said. “There is only one tree at this point that needs to be removed, so we did try to preserve as much as we could and believe we did really well with that.”
Some ideas the team presented were creek overlooks where park goers can observe undisturbed nature, bird blinds and rest stations with park benches and tables.
However, the main feature of the park is the installment of five new tennis courts, which has been requested loudly by the community. It brings the total number of courts at the park up to nine.
Schiestel said it was suggested to put small numbers of courts at different parks throughout the town, but the tennis community wasn’t fond of it.
He also cited an attempt at a tennis center that was voted against, but “even the voters that voted against it said they didn’t want a tennis center, but they did want more courts.”
“One of the things we heard from pickleball and tennis folks was they wanted to do leagues and tournaments,” said Jennings. “They’d like to have a certain number of courts to be able to do that in one location.”
Since Trotter Park was dedicated 12 pickleball courts, that left Leonard and Helen Johns as the tennis complex.
Along with the tennis courts, the park will also have an amphitheater that Mayor Pro Tem Ann Martin said would be perfect for the children’s parade at Flower Mound’s annual Independence Fest.
It was one of a couple aspects of the improvements she liked.
“That’s what came to mind when I saw the amphitheater because they can make announcements and do contests,” said Mayor Pro Tem Ann Martin. “Also, I like the boardwalk idea–I think it looks very naturalized and I would love to see some bird blinds.”
Councilman Brian Taylor closed out the comments before voting with some more support for the work of Shipp and Jennings.
“You guys did a heck of a job,” said councilman Brian Taylor. “It works with the land, which is what we’re always trying to do, so we’re putting our money where our mouth is with this park preserving trees, more tennis courts and the boardwalk.”
For more information on the project and to keep up with its progress, visit the project’s page on the Town’s website.
