For the first time in more than five decades, there will be no basketball in Niantic Park this summer due to major renovations planned for the popular Oak Bluffs hangout.

Construction at the park is slated to begin mid-April, and continue through June, presenting unsafe conditions for ballplayers, parks commissioner Amy Billings told the Oak Bluffs selectmen this week.

Most of the work will be complete by July, but landscaping, seeding and major changes to the playground won’t be finished until September.

“I think it’s too risky to plan it and not have the park ready,” she said. “The whole park really needs to be ready. I don’t think we can open half of it.”

Generations of ballplayers have flocked to the park each summer for pick-up games as well as league and tournament play.

But the park’s only court, which has never been resurfaced, is in a sorry state.

“When people come to Martha’s Vineyard and see the despair of that court, they say it doesn’t fit Martha’s Vineyard,” said Omar Daniel, who grew up playing Niantic basketball.

That will all change by summer of 2016, when a project to replace the existing basketball court and add a practice court is complete. When athletes visit the park that summer, they will also find a renovated playground, a new water fountain, public restrooms, new lighting and new landscaping, if all goes according to plan.

But, as the proverbial saying goes, good things come to those who wait. In this case, that means a summer without Niantic streetball.

“There are going to be very many disappointed children,” said selectman Gail Barmakian, upon learning of the park’s closure.

“Our summer residents give this as their prime time,” echoed selectman Gregory Coogan. “They pay a lot have things working, and for them not to have that, it will be disappointing.”

The park’s closure will displace three leagues that normally play at Niantic, as well as the youth basketball camp and the Vineyard Streetball Classic, a popular youth tournament.

Basketball coach Mike Joyce is searching for an alternative space. “It’s just a matter of seeing if there is a place in Oak Bluffs we can use and that the town can kind of sponsor,” he said.

While he hasn’t yet exhausted his options, there is a chance that the camp will not take place this summer.

“There is that possibility, but I am trying to avoid that possibility,” he said. “It’s been 50 years and running that there has been basketball.”

Mr. Daniel, who started the streetball classic in 2002, said his tournament will take the year off.

But when it’s back in 2016, it will be bigger than ever, he said. He’s already planning regional Cape and Islands tournaments and wants to bring kids up from Georgia, where he runs another recreational program.“We are going to have more courts and more ability to get kids to come from off-Island,” he said.

The town has estimated that the majority of the project, including repairs to the existing wood frame building and general park and landscape improvements, will not exceed $654,000, though the project just went to bid this week.

The town community preservation committee has already allocated $400,000 in state funds for the project, and has plans to reimburse another $350,000.

In addition, the parks department has raised money for playground improvements. Local landscapers have also offered their services on a volunteer basis.

Current plans show that the park will maintain the same basic shape, but two of the four tennis courts will be resurfaced — one will become a practice basketball court and the other will be a multi-use court.

The improvements to the main court are a long time coming, Niantic fans said this week.

“We’ve filled some cracks out there, and done some painting, but it’s really never been redone,” Mr. Joyce said.

And while the court will be missed this summer, last summer, ballplayers were disappointed to see the shabby court still in place.

“It’s going to be tough but all of these kids wanted it and are waiting for it,” Ms. Billings said.