If you go to CityPlace these days, you’ll hear a new clicking sound and see something that is emblematic of our times. Thirteen pop-up pickleball courts – operated by the same entrepreneurs who brought seasonal pickleball to Central Park in New York – opened for the season last week in a vacant piece of property within the popular West Palm Beach development. From now through March, a razed parcel within CityPlace that used to house a movie theater, comedy club, and restaurants is home to pickleball courts.
“The real estate can be hard to find in cities,” said Mary Cannon, who along with her business partner, Erica Desai, are the founders of CityPickle. “We couldn’t imagine a more beautiful location than to be in the middle of CityPlace.”
Pickleball courts are popping up all over South Florida as this sport, which went viral during the COVID-19 epidemic, reacts to the problem of too many players and not enough courts.
At first, pickleball pioneers had been content to play on tennis courts that were lined for the smaller pickleball courts, or on indoor gyms with hardwood floors already lined for basketball and volleyball.
But over the past few years, the growing number of new pickleball players and the sport’s sudden visibility in pop culture, have persuaded luxury real estate developers, city governments and private entrepreneurs to make big investments in creating pickleball-only courts. We are experiencing the first tremors of the coming explosion in pickleball courts.
The most dramatic addition is called The Fort, a public-private partnership with the City of Fort Lauderdale that is opening next month in a public park near the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
Source: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/opinion/columns/2024/11/14/opinion-pickleball-pop-up-at-cityplace-in-west-palm-beach-a-sign-of-the-times-for-sport/76257340007/