Just weeks after Arlington’s new outdoor pickleball complex at Walter Reed Community Center opened for play, a battle over operating hours is underway.
With some pickleball supporters circulating a petition to expand the schedule, a representative of the Columbia Heights Civic Association went to Saturday’s County Board meeting to denounce the idea.
Play is already underway, and Arlington officials on Wednesday, June 10 will celebrate the opening of a new six-court pickleball complex at Walter Reed Community Center.
It is the county’s first dedicated outdoor pickleball facility, using former multi-court space at the community center.
Construction on the planned pickleball courts for the Walter Reed Community Center is expected to begin by the end of this year.
The Arlington County Dept. of Parks and Recreation announced the next steps for the hotly contested project and unveiled 90% complete designs last week. The project is set to go out for bid this spring and a contract is expected to go to the Arlington County Board for approval in the summer.
Arlington County will continue with plans to build dedicated pickleball courts at the Walter Reed Community Center.
The county had mulled pausing the project, putting the question to community members in a survey this spring.
Arlington County has spent more than $150,000 on acoustic fencing to help manage the noise coming from pickleball courts.
In recent weeks and months, acoustic fencing has gone up around multi-use courts at five different parks around the county. That includes Glebe Road Park, Marcey Road Park, Hayes Park, Virginia Highlands Park, and Walter Reed Community Center, which were installed just last week — and two years ahead of schedule.
Those living near Walter Reed Community Center may soon get a reprieve from the pickleball pop.
Next week, a 10-foot-tall acoustic fence will be installed at the multi-use pickleball and tennis courts at 2909 16th Street S., south of Columbia Pike.
Arlington County’s pickleball plans continue to peeve particular people, prompting a potential project pause.
The Donaldson Run Civic Association (DRCA) sent a letter to the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) late last week expressing the belief the department did not sufficiently involve the civic association when making the decision to re-line several tennis courts for pickleball at Marcey Road Park in North Arlington.
Police are on the lookout for a man who has been spotted masturbating multiple times near the Walter Reed pickleball courts.
Cops have been called to the Walter Reed Community Center at 2909 16th Street S. at least two times in the past two weeks, each time in the late morning, according to Arlington County police crime reports.
One person’s vacant building is another’s future pickleball facility.
Not to be topped by a County Board candidate’s suggestion to put pickleball facilities at the condemned Key Bridge Marriott, Board Vice-Chair Libbey Garvey mulled whether vacant office buildings could be retrofitted for courts.
An Arlington-based group wants to “take over pickleball nation” and become the sport’s most talked-about organization within three years.
The Iron Paddles Pickleball Club is a 115-person-strong organization that sets up tournaments, clinics, and league play throughout the region. The club is locally-based but calls the courts at Walter Reed Community Center home.
(Updated on 2/14/23) The fight over the new pickleball courts coming to Walter Reed Community Center appears to have escalated.
In a flyer that’s now being disseminated around the neighborhood, opponents are leveling accusations of “bullying of our children by pickleball players,” “public urination on playground and sensory garden,” and causing “excessive continuous noise from dawn to 10 p.m. every day.”
Local residents can now weigh in on the “future of pickleball” at the Walter Reed Community Center.
A survey was sent out earlier this week by the Arlington Dept. of Parks and Recreation (DPR) asking the community to provide input and feedback about the new outdoor pickleball courts coming to the community center at 2909 16th Street S., south of Columbia Pike.
