NJ’s largest indoor pickleball center coming to Wayne
WAYNE – A Long Island-based owner of gyms and racket clubs will open the largest indoor facility dedicated to pickleball in New Jersey at a local shopping center next year, the company said.
The 50,000-square-foot arena will offer 20 courts, including a stadiumstyle court, on the third floor of Willowbrook Plaza, at 77 Willowbrook Blvd. It will be big enough to host national tournaments, and it will have a concession stand and space for corporate events.
Sportime Clubs, headquartered 51 miles east of Manhattan, announced the new club in a statement released Tuesday. It is expected to open in the spring of 2025.
Claude Okin, the chief executive officer of Sportime Clubs, said the facility will serve “ever-growing masses of pickleball lovers” and many others who will join “those legions” in the coming years. “We’re proud to be a racket sports leader in our region since 1994,” he said.
The Wayne facility is part of an expansion of operations for Sportime Clubs, which also announced this week that it will open 13 pickleball courts at the Merrick Avenue Athletic Center, a multisport complex in Westbury, New York.
The company hopes to have at least a dozen pickleball centers open by the end of 2027.
Pickleball, invented by three men from Bainbridge Island, Washington, almost 60 years ago, is played on a 20foot-by-44-foot court – the same dimensions as a badminton court – with a perforated plastic ball and wooden paddles. The popularity of the sport is soaring. According to U.S.A. Pickleball, a nonprofit and the national governing body of the sport, the number of known places to play in the country is 11,864 – including an increase of 1,140 locations last year. There are an estimated 8.9 million players vying for court time.
New Jersey is ranked 19th out of all states, the organization said, with 211 places to play and 951 total courts.