September 30, 2026 By Carol Britton Meyer
A contractor has been hired by the town to demolish the abandoned Building 12 on Bare Cove Park Drive in preparation for the construction of the $2.04 million eight pickleball courts across from the Carlson Field Athletic Complex that were approved at the 2025 Annual Town Meeting, under the umbrella of the Hingham Recreation Commission. The permitting process is complete. The courts are expected to be open by summer 2027.
The board approved the demolition contract and also the project scope specifications this week, including the sound mitigation.
If all goes as planned, the courts will be open to the public as soon as summer 2027.
Of the $2.04 million, $758,640 came from the town’s Community Preservation Act funds. The remaining $1.278 million is from unassigned fund balance in the town budget.
Pasquazzi Bros., Inc. of Cranston, R.I. was the lowest of two bidders at $390,000. The other bid was for $588,000. The demolition is set to start in early October, is expected to finish in November.
Town Meeting voters approved the expenditure of $1.278 million for the design, bidding, demolition, site preparation, construction, and other related expenses for the construction of 12 courts, but that number was later reduced due to conservation restrictions, according to Hingham Recreation Director Mark Thorell.
When asked if the project cost will come down with four fewer courts, he said that should be the case, but he wasn’t sure by how much.
The project will include post-tension concrete pickleball courts, seating areas, shade shelters, a parking lot, 15-foot fence with a sound mitigation barrier and sound mitigation screens and is fully ADA-accessible.
The estimated cost includes demolition of the existing building and an estimate for any required remediation of environmental conditions. Asbestos removal is part of the contract.
Timeline
The expected timeline for the pickleball courts construction is for the project to go out to bid in October, a select board vote on the contract later this month, and staging and beginning of the construction within the December/January time frame, contingent on select board approval and completion of the demolition.
The courts will be used on a first-come, first-serve basis and will not be restricted to use by Hingham citizens only, Thorell said in response to a question posed by Tricia Byrnes, who suggested the town run the courts as a for-profit endeavor through tournaments and other related events.
That is not the intent, Thorell said, and the courts “will be accessible to the public at all times of the day.”
He also explained that the pickleball courts will be managed in the same way as the public tennis courts under the Rec’s umbrella – open to whoever arrives first.
Recreation Commission Chair Vicki Donlan noted that pickleball players “tend to be organized” in arranging their play time and that she doesn’t anticipate long waiting lines. “Hingham residents have been using the pickleball courts in surrounding towns – which all have their own – and they are looking forward to coming home,” she said.
“If [long lines] become an issue, we will tackle it,” Thorell said.
‘We all want this project to be a success’
Anita Ryan shared her thoughts. “We all want this project to be a success,” she said, and suggested a look back after a year to ensure “everything is working great, that [abutters] can still enjoy their back yards, and that the sound mitigation is absorbing the sound.”
She wondered how “an appropriate balance” could be found “between the eight courts evaluated against the town’s noise bylaw. Pickleball noise has a unique trait – a sharp, repetitive, random pop hundreds of times an hour, many times a day. This creates a highly intrusive and chaotic soundscape that can be disturbing to neighbors.”
In closing, she told the board that she hopes the sound mitigation is “being taken seriously. There have been lawsuits in Massachusetts and around the nation. That’s a club we don’t want to join.”
Chair Liz Klein gave assurances that sound mitigation “is a concern of ours, and we have done our due diligence.”
Some abutters raised concerns about sound during the earlier vetting process. In light of those, the Recreation Department
commissioned a sound study, with results presented in a public meeting in January 2025.
Following further discussions, a supplemental study was completed, leading to a Recreation Commission vote to include sound mitigation in the project.