Courts and lots in Lakewood.

Lakewood is a dense, lakeside city: houses on narrow lots, apartment buildings on many streets, the Gold Coast high-rises at the east end of the lakefront, and Lakewood Park, one of the largest lakefront parks in Ohio. The park is where the city took its pickleball question, applying for a Cuyahoga County community development grant and going to its Planning Commission to turn the north tennis court into pickleball courts. A tennis court that is going to carry two sports needs its cracks and its base sorted before anyone paints new lines, and that is the order we bid it in.

Apartment buildings and churches make up much of Lakewood's lot work: tight sites with a narrow drive, parked cars and neighbors, where a lot sealed and striped in a day should be open by morning. The city is twelve miles and about twenty minutes from the yard, along I-90 or Detroit Road, and its schools, Lakewood City Schools, add their own lots and courts to the list.