Pickleball promoters are seeking to build public support for a signature facility in the county, and they have even identified a potential location.
Tim Dellinger, representing the Arlington Pickleball Club, on Oct. 22 asked members of the county’s Sports Commission to support additional dedicated courts for the increasingly popular sport.
“Ten years ago, it really started taking off, and Arlington didn’t really know what to do,” Dellinger said.
As a result, pickleball players in Arlington largely have to share court spaces with basketball and tennis players. Mixed-use courts result in “eternal fighting” over availability, Dellinger said.
“Welcome to Arlington,” chuckled commission member Adam Rasmussen in response.
Dellinger came to the meeting with a request that county leaders consider developing a “flagship facility” for pickleball when, sometime in the coming decade, they redevelop Quincy Park.
“This is a plausible thing, it’s not crazy,” Dellinger said.
Not crazy, but definitely a challenge given the number of organizations that could end up seeking a piece of that park for their own uses.
“Everybody’s got their eyes on Quincy,” commission chair Lizzy Stell said.
The request for additional pickleball courts comes as the county government is working on a rewrite of its 2019 Public Spaces Master Plan. An advisory committee helping to guide the process last met on Oct. 21, with County Board adoption of a final plan expected early next year.
Dellinger compared the need for a major pickleball facility to that of the major tennis complex now being developed at Bluemont Park. He said pickleball players deserve more than a recently redeveloped six-court facility adjacent to Walter Reed Community Center and various piecemeal courts countywide.
The county’s fiscal year 2027-36 Capital Improvement Plan, adopted earlier this year, allocated $38.42 million to Quincy Park improvements, with planning set to begin in fiscal year 2030 and the majority of construction scheduled for fiscal year 2034.
Dollar amounts and timelines could evolve over time, and the proposal does not give direction on how the Quincy Park funding should be used. That discussion will come later.
Stell said that while a revamped Public Spaces Master Plan would be aspirational, it may run into real-world difficulties — a lack of funds and a lack of space.
“All the needs are going to be hard to meet,” she said. “I can’t even see how they’re going to find room for half of what they want to achieve.”
Rasmussen agreed, saying that colocating uses “is always going to be an issue” to contend with.
“We only have so much space,” he said.
As part of a community survey conducted for the county government as part of the revisions to the Public Spaces Master Plan, 7% of respondents selected outdoor pickleball courts as one of their top four recreation priorities. That placed pickleball in the middle of the pack among more than two dozen options offered to respondents.
As a result of public feedback, county staff have placed an increase in outdoor pickleball courts in their “Tier 2” ranking on a three-level scale. The items in that level are considered to be of high importance, but with a lower existing unmet need than those deemed Tier 1 priorities.
The same ranking also placed the broad category of “indoor sports” — presumably including pickleball — as a Tier 2 priority.
At the Oct. 22 meeting, commission member George Thompson said pickleball players deserve attention, given the “absolute explosion” in its popularity in recent years.
