The Homestead Community Center at DC Ranch is getting a makeover this month.

About 1,000 square feet of the 7,500-square-foot Homestead center will be renovated, said Krista Hinz, a spokeswoman at the DC Ranch master-planned community in north Scottsdale.

She said DC Ranch Community Council board members spent the first part of the year researching ways to improve the space and to better accommodate resident and guest needs.

The center, 18600 N. 98th St., in north Scottsdale, was built in 2006 as a venue to host the Homestead Playhouse youth theater. Today it serves as a venue for Community Council events, the Playhouse and other events including weddings, meetings, conferences and summer camps.

Construction began Aug. 1 and is scheduled to be completed at the end of the month.

“The space was visually outdated and not a very efficient use of space,” she said.

The center, which sits on four acres, offers amenities including basketball courts, a playground and a demonstration kitchen.

The renovations include improvements to the kitchen, lobby, office and conference spaces.

Improvements also will be made to the Desert Camp Community Center at DC Ranch. That includes shrinking the size of the men’s locker room and adding a wall to create a second multipurpose room, which will connect to a kitchenette.

Desert Camp, built in 1997, was DC Ranch’s original community center and acted as the sales center during its build-out phase.

Today it houses a resident gym, pool and Community Council events.

It also hosts weddings, small meetings and resident clubs.

Hinz said she hopes the renovations will enhance opportunity for residents to connect with each other and with DC Ranch staff.

“Residents, their guests and the public will walk into a much more welcoming space and have additional space for community clubs like poker, bridge and mahjong,” she said.

Village Health Clubs has submitted plans for a 10-court tennis center southwest of Copper Ridge School at DC Ranch.

The project, which involves 3 acres leased from the Scottsdale Unified School District, must be reviewed by the Scottsdale Development Review Board.

No date has been set for the hearing, said Meredith Tessier, a city planner.

Village Health Clubs would pay the school district $40,000 annually to lease the site and allow Copper Ridge students to use the tennis courts at selected times. The lease is for five years with five, 5-year renewal options, said Rick Erdenberger, DC Ranch Village Club general manager.

“It’s a good public-private partnership,” he said. “The school obviously benefits. Our membership benefits and the taxpayers aren’t paying for it.”

The Village Health Clubs tennis courts eventually would be used by students at a district high school adjacent to Copper Ridge School. The district’s sixth high school is planned as a biomedical academy for as many as 800 students.

DMB Associates Inc., which is developing DC Ranch, donated an 18-acre high- school site with a clause requiring construction to start by 2018 or the land reverts to DMB.

District voters will be asked in November 2013 to approve a bond issue to fund the new high school and elementary-school renovations, with a cost estimate of $25 million for the high school, said Rick Freeman, district director of facilities and operations.

The tennis center site originally had been planned for a football stadium if the campus had been a traditional high school, he said.

Courts could open in 2013

The Village hopes to get its tennis-center plan before the Development Review Board by September, said Kurt Jones, a senior planner with Ridenour, Hienton & Lewis PLLC, which is working with the club on its plans.

If approved, construction of the tennis center could start by year’s end with completion targeted for late spring or early summer of 2013, Jones said.

The courts would be just south of three baseball fields at Copper Ridge and less than a mile from the DC Ranch Village Club at Legacy Boulevard and Thompson Peak Parkway.

The tennis center, with a clubhouse and storage building, would be lit until 10 p.m. with lights on 20-foot poles. No direct light would spill into a residential area to the south, Jones said.

The ballfield lights on 75-foot poles would be more noticeable in the adjacent Arcadia neighborhood at DC Ranch than the tennis lights, he said.

Fewer than half the 100 homes planned for Arcadia have been built and the closest lot is 70 feet from the tennis center, Jones said.

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Erdenberger, the club manager, said adding the tennis courts will enhance the recreation options at the DC Ranch Village Club and attract new members.

The club’s fees start at about $150 per month with an initiation fee of $500, said Erdenberger, adding that the tennis fee would be about $25 per month.

The Village’s courts would be designed to resist cracking by using post-tension-slab construction with steel cables running through the concrete to make the surface more flexible.

DC Ranch has two tennis courts at its Desert Camp community park and six courts at the DC Ranch Country Club.

Scottsdale has long planned a tennis center and community park north of Copper Ridge School but there is no current funding for construction.