Industrial Properties Serve Up Space for Pickleball Clubs

Pickleball has been bouncing up the Northeast for some time, supplanting some outdoor tennis courts. Now the sport is getting embraced by senior-apartment complex landlords as an amenity for aging baby boomers at the same time that clubs are serving as new tenants in industrial properties.

Facilities for pickleball — described as a combination of pingpong, tennis and badminton — have been opening across the United States, both outdoor and indoor, as its popularity rises. A game that's less than 60 years old, pickleball is touted as the fastest-growing sport in the United States and is branching out internationally as well.

The sport has a firm foothold in areas such as the West Coast, the South and mid-Atlantic states such as Virginia and Maryland, but it has been expanding in the tri-state region and New England. Most recently, a pickleball club has found a site at an industrial building in New Jersey. The Flemington Pickleball Club, founded by childhood friends Bob Drinane and Eric Luque, has just leased what is planned to be Hunterdon County’s first indoor pickleball-only site.

“Pickleball, the growth has taken off," Luque told CoStar. “It really was in the South and the West, where the weather allows for mostly year-round play outdoors. As pickleball grows in the Northeast, we wanted a place where people could play year-round.”

Amid the global coronavirus pandemic, pickleball fans can get out of the house and play and still maintain social distancing, according to the sport’s advocates. Aficionados say it’s an easy game to learn and is low impact and easy on the joints. That’s made it popular with older Americans and a selling point for senior, “active adult” and 55-and-over housing.

“From what I’ve been told from various people that I know that are retiring and moving, any complexes they’ve looked at have pickleball courts as an amenity,” said Marc Shein, the broker on the lease and a senior vice president at NAI DiLeo-Bram & Co. “It’s a little less strenuous for older people to play.”

Drinane and Luque’s club will be occupying 11,200 square feet at 19 Royal Road in Flemington, New Jersey. The facility will have five climate-controlled courts and a lounge area for players and spectators, according to Shein. A mid-September grand opening is planned. The building, which has a 21-foot ceiling height and is fully air-conditioned and zoned for recreational use, attracted interest from sports-related groups, according to Shein.

Pickleball is played on a badminton-sized court, about a third the size of a tennis court. The equipment is a perforated plastic ball, similar to a whiffle ball, and composite or wooden paddles about twice the size of ping-pong paddles, according to the USA Pickleball Association. It can be played indoors or outdoors and is easy for beginners to learn, according to that group.

The Flemington Pickleball Club, which has just started signing up members, is aiming to have a facility that combines fitness, competition, entertainment and community, and can be used people by all ages and skill levels, according to Luque. The new facility’s design incorporates COVID-19 safety features such as touchless features in its bathrooms, he said.

So far the club’s members include individuals 70 and older as well as families with children, according to Luque.

Pickleball was invented in 1965 on an island not far from Seattle by three fathers — Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum — who were trying to find a way to occupy their bored children that summer, according to the USA Pickleball Association. There are several accounts of how pickleball got its odd name, since it doesn’t involve pickles. But one version says the game was named after the Pritchard family’s dog, Pickles.

Pickleball courts are being increasingly used as an amenity in senior and 55-and-older housing facilities. Companies such as Kolter Homes, Sparrow Partners and 13th Floor Homes are among the developers that have added them to their properties. Kolter’s PGA Village Verano community in Port St. Lucie boasts that it has the largest private pickleball complex in South Florida.

“The resident-only Pickleball Center features 26 courts, a championship court, and an event lawn with pavilion area,” according to Kolter’s website. “Lighted courts and South Florida’s mild climate make year-round play yours to enjoy. … The [center] is also the host site of the World Pickleball Open.”

The sport may be more than just a pleasant diversion for aging Americans. A 2018 study by Western State Colorado University found that playing pickleball improves cardio-respiratory fitness and reduces cardiovascular-disease risk factors for middle-aged and older adults.

The demand for the game has become so strong that some municipalities are converting their outdoor tennis courts to pickleball courts. That happened earlier this month in Dalton, Georgia, where the parks and recreation department completed such a conversion in Brookwood Park. In Vienna, Virginia, a newly formed pickleball club is looking to have courts built in its county.

There are now more than 100 indoor and outdoor pickleball courts within 20 miles of Madison, Wisconsin, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.

In some cases, tennis centers are temporarily retaping their courts’ lines to transform them into pickleball courts for a few hours a day, Luque said. But the Flemington pickleball facility will allow people to play from morning to night, he said.

“The hours and the opportunities to play are limited, where we want to really give people from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. to come in and play when it’s convenient for them,” Luque said.