An LED retrofit of the court lighting at an RV resort community in Tucson. New heads went up on the resort's existing poles, so the pickleball and tennis courts got modern light without new poles, new foundations, or a trench across finished hardscape.
Private RV resort community, Tucson, Arizona
LED retrofit of the pickleball, tennis and adjacent amenity lighting
New heads on the existing poles — no new poles, foundations or trenching
Active resort — courts and walkways stayed in use around the work
Scope of Work
The resort already had poles in the right places. The fixtures on them were what needed to change. Reusing the poles and the existing circuits kept this job out of the ground entirely — nothing to pour, nothing to trench, and no courts closed waiting on concrete to cure.
Sequence
A retrofit lives or dies on what you find on the pole. The order below is what kept this one from turning into a pole-replacement project.
Every pole walked before ordering: mounting style, arm condition, what else was hanging on it, and what the branch circuit was feeding. That is what decided which head went where.
Old fixtures off and LED heads on, worked from a boom lift staged on the hardscape. The poles carrying resort communications and PA equipment were worked around live — that gear never came down.
Each head tilted to the play surface and checked under power, then the courts went straight back into use — no concrete, no restoration, nothing left fenced off overnight.
Photos
New heads, existing poles, and a resort that stayed open the whole time.
Buyer's Guide
This project is the pattern for most court-lighting decisions in Tucson. Here is what actually drives a sports-court lighting job — pickleball, tennis, or multi-court — before anyone quotes you a fixture.
Recreational outdoor courts are commonly lit to around 30 footcandles, with competitive and club-level play targeting more — and uniformity matters as much as the number, because a bright center with dark corners plays worse than an evenly lit court at a lower level. LED heads make both easier: more lumens per watt, and optics that put the light on the court instead of scattering it.
Tucson and Pima County enforce an outdoor lighting code written to protect the dark sky — full-cutoff fixtures, warm color temperatures, and limits on uplight and spill. Court lighting can absolutely comply: shielded LED heads aimed down at the surface, on poles no taller than the throw requires. We design to the code instead of arguing with it.
The expensive part of court lighting is the poles, foundations, and trenching — not the fixtures. If the existing poles are structurally sound and positioned where the light needs to come from, new LED heads on old poles delivers most of the benefit at a fraction of the cost, with no concrete and no closed courts. When poles are rotted, undersized, or in the wrong places, we say so — and we self-perform the trenching and foundations that new poles need.
On a pickleball court the ball spends half its life overhead. Fixture optics, mounting height, and aiming angles decide whether players are tracking a lob or staring into a floodlight — and whether the neighbors see a lit court or a glare bomb. Aiming and shielding get engineered here, not eyeballed from the lift.
FAQ
Often, yes. If the existing poles are sound and well-placed, new LED heads with the right optics deliver most of the improvement at a fraction of the cost — that is exactly what this project did. A site walk tells us quickly whether your poles can carry it.
Yes, when they're specified and aimed correctly. Tucson and Pima County's outdoor lighting code requires full-cutoff, low-uplight fixtures at warm color temperatures — modern shielded LED sports optics meet it while putting more usable light on the court than the old floods they replace.
A heads-on-existing-poles retrofit is typically measured in days, not weeks — and courts come back into service as each pole is finished, not at the end of the job. New poles add foundations, inspections, and concrete cure time to the schedule.
It swings on one question: are the poles staying? Fixture count, mounting height, controls, and whether trenching or new foundations are involved drive the rest. Tell us what you have and what you play, and we'll come back with both numbers — the retrofit and the rebuild — priced honestly.
The Services Behind It
Every scope on this job is a service we self-perform. Start with the pages below, or tell us about your project.
Why a Retrofit
The expensive part of court lighting is almost never the fixture — it is the poles, the foundations and the trench. When the existing poles are sound and in the right places, the right answer is to leave them alone. That is a judgement call that needs someone who does both the electrical and the civil work, because the alternative is a contractor whose only tool is a new pole base.
Request a BidSports courts, parking lots, RV resorts, HOA common areas — we will tell you honestly whether it is a fixture swap or whether the poles have to come out, and price it either way.
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