Pickleball’s rapidly rising popularity has prompted many U.S. cities to make new courts a priority.
However, space for pickleball courts is often in direct competition with already existing tennis courts.
Tennis courts can be double-lined to have both courts available, but pickleball courts are much smaller than tennis courts, which may be seen as an inefficient use of the space.
In August of 2023, the Upper Arlington City Council voted in a 6-1 decision to renovate the Northam tennis facility to include pickleball courts. The change would have three of the 12 clay tennis courts taken out and six pickleball courts put in their place.
However, the city council's decision has been heavily criticized by community members and has even started a petition in an attempt to reverse the change.
Walt Thieman and Nancy Edwards are two of the organizers of the petition. They say that the change is negative for both tennis players and pickleball players.
Both Thieman and Edwards are tennis players and spend a lot of time at Northam Park. They are part of the tennis club there, but aren’t looking at the issue from a strictly pro-tennis perspective.
“We’re not anti-pickleball,” Edwards said. “Pickleball and tennis are both great sports. Both deserve to be supported.”
The group has several issues with the changes, one of which is the removal of clay tennis courts. There are two types of tennis courts available for use in Upper Arlington: clay courts and hard-surface courts. Thieman and Edwards explained that the clay courts are often preferred, as they allow players to more easily move their feet. This makes playing tennis easier on the joints, especially the knees. This factor is something that is important to older players in the community.
The removal of some of these specific courts, instead of other solutions, such as double-lining hard courts at other parks, is something the group sees as an expensive lose-lose situation.
“We've gone from what we would all love, win-win, to a lose-lose,” Edwards explained. “Where we’re paying twice as much money for half the pickleball courts, where we’re losing critical mass really for both.”
A petition was circulated around the community while the group attended city council meetings to ask city leaders to reconsider.
The group believes that the loss of three of the 12 courts also hurts the tennis-playing community. When speaking to Upper Arlington's City Manager Steve Schoeny about the change to the Northam tennis courts, group brought up that without all 12 courts, the youth program could no longer serve all of the children who had signed up. The group also said they would have to compete with both tennis and pickleball players at other parks in order to try to accommodate the 275 children who signed up for lessons.
Schoeny said including pickleball at Northam was a choice to have the sport available at all Upper Arlington parks. “What we try and do is have that ability for our residents to walk or bike or have a short drive to as many activities in as many parks as we can,” he said.
Schoeny also said that this was a change that was carefully planned, including a study done on which park could accommodate pickleball courts and speaking to the community to gauge interest in the project. He added that the city was aware of the possibility of opposition to the change.
Thieman and Edwards have some doubts about the study’s methods.
“So when you go to make a reservation for tennis, if it’s full, they don’t know that you tried. They don’t capture that, so they don’t know what the true demand is,” Edwards said.
Thieman added, “All the reservations are now done online.”
Thieman and Edwards also have concerns about parking availability at Northam with the addition of pickleball.
Pickleball games are significantly shorter than tennis matches. With pickleball games running about 15 to 30 minutes each, the shortness of the game has helped make pickleball a very social sport, which can attract a crowd.
The new pickleball courts will also be unique in Upper Arlington. They would be the only pickleball-only courts in the city, which Thieman and Edwards think would draw a crowd.
Pickleball at Northam Park will also be free to attend, in comparison to the individual season pass for Upper Arlington residents of $168 for tennis.
Northam Park shares a parking lot with the Upper Arlington Public Library Tremont Branch, the Upper Arlington Senior Center and Tremont Elementary School. The park also has a pool, playground and baseball fields, alongside the tennis courts.
However, with plans to close the Upper Arlington Senior Center when the new Community Center opens, Schoeny believes parking will not be much of an issue.
Thieman and Edwards also believe that Schoeny could have some personal reasons for pushing to put add pickleball at Northam Park. Schoeny plays pickleball and lives close to Northam Park.
When asked about this, Schoeny said that while both of those things are true, there are many more people who are involved in making the final decision to go ahead with the project and he alone does not have that power and does not make decisions about spending city money based on personal convenience.
Unfortunately, for the petitioners, construction of the new pickleball courts has already begun, which has thrown a wrench in plans to get their petition on the November ballot.
The language of the petition would prevent any pickleball courts at Northam Park.
With the new pickleball courts all but certain, the petitioners have asked Upper Arlington City Council to guarantee to preserve the remaining tennis courts at Northam Park. They have also requested the addition of new clay tennis courts in other parks to accommodate tennis players.