New pickleball courts part of upcoming renovation of Woodruff Park tennis courts
Pickleball enthusiasts will soon have a space to call their own at Woodruff Park in west Olympia.
The tennis courts at the park next to Garfield Elementary School are slated for an overhaul this spring that will include the addition of four pickleball courts to go along with new tennis courts. The current tennis courts are concrete slabs that were installed at least 40 years ago, according to a staff report submitted to the Olympia City Council.
The council last week authorized city staff to award a contract for the project to Black Hills Excavating of Olympia, which submitted the low bid of $515,691.06 in response to the city’s call for bids. Other work to be completed includes improvements to onsite parking, fencing, sidewalks and storm drainage.
Jake Lund, senior engineer for Olympia Parks, Arts and Recreation, said he expects construction to begin in March and for the renovations to be complete no later than June 1.
“Now that we’ve gotten the go-ahead from the council, the plan is to meet with the contractors next week and get them going as soon as possible,” Lund said. “We do want it done before the sprayground opens out there, so we don’t have construction going on with kids running around nearby. We’re using the same contractor that did the outdoor courts at Rainier Vista Community Park in Lacey, so we kind of modeled our design after that.”
Rainier Vista has been one of the most popular locations for pickleball players since the courts there opened in the fall of 2017. Players in Thurston County regularly frequent indoor facilities such as gymnasiums and churches, as well as outdoor tennis courts fitted with tape to outline the smaller pickleball playing field.
Denis Ganey, a lead organizer of a semi-official group of pickleballers, said the list of emails he has for local players has grown from a handful to nearly 200 in just a few years. He is among those who play each morning at Woodruff Park during the summer, where some players take the retrofitting a step further by adding weight to the tennis nets in order to pull them down closer to pickleball height.
The game itself resembles a compromise between full-scale tennis and the tabletop version. Players use paddles to hit a large wiffle ball on a surface that is striped like a tennis court, but scaled down to the size of a regulation badminton court. Rules such as a ban on overhead serves work to make the game fit the smaller surface.
Many municipalities and even private developers in the Pacific Northwest have added pickleball courts in recent years, either by retrofitting tennis and basketball courts or with new construction like that slated for Woodruff Park. Still, demand has outpaced supply.
“People find it fun, they find it easy to begin playing and they’ve become excited as they see themselves develop skills,” Ganey said. “We have teenagers, young adults, and a lot of teachers come out during the summer, as do older folks. It’s less expensive than other options like golf, and there’s a social component to it as well. People develop friendships and go off and do other things together as well.”
To keep up on the local pickleball scene, visit the Thurston County Pickleball Club on Facebook.