Outdoor gym, pickleball courts part of nearly $1 million in Belleville park improvements

Teri Maddox
·3 min read
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Belleville city officials are unveiling an outdoor gym on Tuesday that represents the first phase of a nearly $1 million improvement plan at Bellevue Park.

The city also is building a new playground and gazebo, converting the two tennis courts into four pickleball courts, renovating the amphitheater and using riprap to stabilize the lake’s shoreline.

“We’re just trying to breathe life back into our oldest park,” said Jason Poole, director of public works.

Poole noted that the city tries to complete at least one major improvement project at a park each year on a rotating basis. A couple of years ago, workers did some interior work at the Stone Lodge shelter and replaced the pedestrian bridge at Bellevue Park.

This time around, the city is responding to an explosion of interest in the sport of pickleball across the country.

“This will actually be our first (city-owned) pickleball courts outside that are lined for it and have the proper-sized nets and all that good stuff,” Poole said. “So hopefully people will be happy with them.”

Most tennis players in Belleville go to East End Park, according to Poole. There are also two tennis courts at Pleasant Hill Park, although officials have considered converting one into pickleball courts.

Poole expects the Bellevue Park Improvement Project to be completed by April at a cost of about $950,000. Metro East Park and Recreation District approved a $100,000 grant for it last year.

“We work to improve parks and develop trails throughout the two-county area,” said Executive Director Bryan Werner, speaking of Madison and St. Clair counties, where residents pay a sales tax of 1/10 of 1% to fund the district.

Hank’s Excavating & Landscaping in Belleville is serving as general contractor for the Bellevue Park improvements.

People demonstrate exercises on the first Fitness Court, designed by the National Fitness Campaign and built in San Francisco, California. There are now about 500 of the outdoor gyms across the United States.
People demonstrate exercises on the first Fitness Court, designed by the National Fitness Campaign and built in San Francisco, California. There are now about 500 of the outdoor gyms across the United States.

The project’s first phase is the Fitness Court outdoor gym. It’s built on a blue concrete pad with seven exercise stations for bending, squatting, lunging, pulling and pushing and working on core strength and agility.

The gym was designed by the National Fitness Campaign, a wellness consulting firm based in San Francisco, California, which has built about 500 of them in the United States, according to Communications Manager Lindsay Valenti.

“We want to put a Fitness Court within a 10-minute bike ride of every American,” she said. “That’s our mission.”

People can download a free app on their cellphones to get a library of movements and workouts with professional trainers. On-site displays provide a QR code and instructions.

“We have beginner, intermediate and advanced (workouts), and every Fitness Court is ADA-accessible,” Valenti said, referring to the Americans with Disabilities Act. “So it’s for individuals of all abilities, starting at age 14 for safety purposes.”

The National Fitness Campaign partners with major health-care providers to fund construction of the outdoor gyms. In Belleville’s case, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois is contributing $50,000 toward the $142,500 cost.

The city and Greater Belleville Chamber of Commerce will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Fitness Court at Bellevue Park Drive and Dapron Drive. It will be open to the public at that point.

Poole likes the idea of giving local residents more opportunities to exercise. He pointed out that St. Clair County has historically landed near the top of the list of Illinois counties with high obesity rates.

“St. Clair County does need help getting people fit,” he said.

The only other Fitness Court outdoor gym in the metro-east is in Jones Park in East St. Louis, according to Werner. It also was built with help from a Metro East Park and Recreation District grant.

This diagram shows seven exercises or movements that can be done in seven minutes at a Fitness Center, an outdoor gym designed by the National Fitness Campaign.
This diagram shows seven exercises or movements that can be done in seven minutes at a Fitness Center, an outdoor gym designed by the National Fitness Campaign.