Faced with growing demand for tennis space, the Sportsmen’s Tennis & Enrichment Club (STEC) on Blue Hill Avenue announced it will proceed with an expansion project to enclose three outdoor courts, add outdoor lighting to existing courts, and bring on a new solar array.

STEC CEO Toni Wiley appeared at the Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council (GMNC) meeting on Monday night to discuss the project that has been a long time in the making, but now ready to start.

“We have been on a $4 million fundraising campaign for some time and this past summer we secured most of that and are looking at the design now,” she said. “We hope to get approvals for the first leg of the expansion and in the fall of 2022, we’ll hopefully be able to operate the first leg of this expansion. That includes one fabricated metal building over some of our outdoor courts. In a couple of years, we’re looking for the expansion to increase capacity on our soft (educational) programs.”

STEC has been operating in Harambee Park (Franklin Field) on Blue Hill Avenue since the 1970s when it was founded by several friends who loved tennis and wanted to teach the game to underserved youth in the area. Since then, a thriving educational component has combined with a high-demand tennis program for youth and adults. The complex currently has seven full tennis courts inside two buildings, said architect Peter Roth, and seven full outdoor courts.

The expansion looks to build a third metal building over four existing outdoor courts. That would allow more use of the courts year-round and would keep three existing outdoor courts. Meanwhile, those three outdoor courts would be upgraded with lighting so they can be used seasonally at night and get more use.

“There is just so much demand,” said Wiley, who is a Mattapan resident. “There was high demand before the pandemic and there was even more demand during the pandemic and even now. Also, during the pandemic, four tennis clubs closed, which created even more demand for us as people moved over here to play…It will really expand the ability of the club to work in the winter and serve youth and adults.”

She said the expansion does not include taking up any more of the park, and she doubted they would ever expand their footprint farther into Harambee.

“We use our space by special legislation passed a long time ago by the state, and as much as I would love to expand, the odds of us getting further legislation or being allowed to expand beyond our existing boundaries are slim,” Wiley said.

She said using existing space to expand the soft programs and educational pieces would likely start in 2023 after the construction of the tennis facilities.

As part of the project, the new building would host a large solar array developed by Dorchester’s Resonant Energy. On the roof of that building, they would place 432 solar panels facing south and capable of generating 233,021 KWh/year. That is enough to power 38 average New England homes, said Isaac Baker of Resonant. Half of the power generated would be directed to STEC and would offset about 90 percent of their energy usage. The other 50 percent would be sold at a 20 percent discount to Eversource ratepayers in the low-income program throughout Greater Boston.

All neighbors who spoke about the project, which is actually in Dorchester just beyond the Mattapan line, gave STEC high marks for its programming and community involvement, which translated into overwhelming support for the expansion project.