- December 4, 2025
Palm Coast resident and tennis player Taralyn Bernard. Photo by Sierra Williams
USTA representatives Laura Bowen and George Henry talk about potential programs the USTA would offer at the Southern Recreation Center. Photo by Sierra Williams
Palm Coast Councilman Ty Miller. Photo by Sierra Williams
SIerra Williams
Staff writer
A hesitant Palm Coast City Council pumped the breaks on a proposed maintenance contract with the United States Tennis Association.
The management contract proposed the USTA take over most of the operations at the Southern Recreation Center, with the contract beginning in January 2026 and lasting five years to December 2031. The USTA states this would save Palm Coast $400,000 in personnel expenses, plus additional operating expenses.
But the City Council as a whole seemed hesitant to jump on board with the contract without more information and a financial breakdown of costs and potential revenue gains and losses.
“I see the potential on both sides, but I also see the risk,” Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri said at the Sept. 9 workshop meeting. The council will vote on the contract at its Sept. 16 business meeting.
The proposed contract stipulates Palm Coast would keep the revenue from community activities, event space rentals and food service contracts. The USTA would keep the revenue from tennis and pickleball operations while also absorbing the cost of those equipment and supply needs.
USTA representative Laura Bowen said USTA Florida hosts the majority of tennis events in the state. The plan would have a variety of pro-led pickleball and tennis programs, though the number of proposed tennis programs was double what was proposed for pickleball. The pass-holder fees would stay the same.
Councilman Dave Sullivan — who was on the Flagler County Commission when the city was building the Southern Recreation Center, in part with county Tourism Development Funds — said the city should wait until the facility has been open longer.
“I think we’re still a little bit too early to do any major changing in the management now,” Sullivan said.
The Southern Recreation Center opened in 2024. Year-to-date, it has made $418,800 in revenue from a mixture of sources, including pickleball admission — the majority of the revenue, at $163,000 — and tennis admissions, at almost $55,000.
Expenses, though, are at $625,000 year-to-date, a $200,000 gap. But this is just the first year of operations. Parks and Recreation Director said it is overperforming; unlike the city’s golf course, which has been in the negative consistently for years, the center could still make cost-recovery under the city’s management.
“I really think that this is just getting off the ground and there’s a lot of revenue to be had,” Pontieri said.
A large organization like the USTA would be able to run programs at the facility more efficiently, at least according to resident and tennis player Taralyn Bernard. Bernard said she has had times where the center’s professional players have not shown up to programs or classes.
“I feel like it’s just not being run effectively,” Bernard said. “And paying this much money annually, I want something in return.”
A positive argument for the contract would be the potential tourism from a USTA-run facility in Palm Coast. Palm Coast already hosts an annual USTA tournament at the Southern Recreation Center every year and as a USTA-managed facility, it would have the resources to draw more tournaments to Palm Coast.
The USTA could also host additional junior and adult tournaments, as well as social events, at the Recreation Center, Bowen said.
“The economic impact for these types of events could be significant to the city, double or triple over time,” Bowen said.
Sullivan pointed out that the TDC grant awarded to Palm Coast was given with the idea that the Southern Recreation Center would draw additional tourism to the area.
Councilman Ty Miller pointed out that turning over maintenance of the facility to the USTA may remove some of the expenses from the city’s checkbook, but it takes away the revenue, too.
“If we lose all of our revenues, and we save a couple hundred grand in expenditures, net, we’re losing money here if we do this,” he said.
And, Pontieri pointed out, the city would still be on the hook for some of the maintenance expenses, like facility maintenance, utility costs and providing the material and labor for court maintenance.
Pontieri also pointed out that pickleball prospects remained relatively unknown in the contract.
Several members of the public had that concern. Resident and pickleball player Van Gibson said many pickleball players volunteer to help run some programs at the Southern Recreation Center.
He said their pickleball organization has grown to 400 members in Palm Coast, in large part because of the Recreation Center.
“I don’t want to go back to Holland Park and put my nets up to play pickleball because something has happened to change the chemistry that we have developed together,” he said.
Mayor Mike Norris and Councilman Charles Gambaro agreed that the center needed more time and that the council needed more information.
“I would say we could wait, go through a few more quarters and see how the Recreation Center is performing and revisit the topic,” Norris said.
Gambaro said it is the council’s mandate to be cost recovery on its Parks and Recreation amenities, similar to what the council is trying to do with the city’s golf course. The council should be consistent in its cost-recovery policy, he said.
“I think we need to understand the numbers before we can make a decision on anything,” Gambaro said. “But my concern is from a policy perspective, which is this board’s mandate, to make sure that we’re asking our staff to go take a look at this from a consistent perspective.”
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