Local pickleball players have a new choice of courts in Forest Park.
At 8 a.m. on Aug. 27, the Park District of Forest Park unlocked the gates to six new pickleball courts at the corner of Harrison Street and Des Plaines Avenue.
While the courts are now open for use, the park district will host a grand opening in the spring. Around the same time, it plans to offer equipment rentals and leagues for the courts. Also by spring, the park district intends to install shade structures and benches around the courts.
“We have a huge pickleball community,” Andrew Doss, superintendent of parks and facilities, told the Review. He added that locals have attended park district board meetings to request more courts.
The Roos Recreation Center has three indoor tennis courts with pickleball boundaries on them, but the new outdoor ones — an addition to the park district’s six outdoor tennis courts next to the Roos — offer additional space for a sport that’s growing in popularity.
The park district has wanted to build pickleball courts for over 18 months, according to its Executive Director Jackie Iovinelli.
Sport Court Midwest, a contractor based in Elmhurst, constructed the pickleball courts out of modular tiles, which Doss said is recommended by USA Pickleball. The park district met the company at a conference and decided to work with them after another contractor was lagging in moving the project along. Sport Court Midwest first estimated they’d complete the courts in September, but both started and finished construction in August.
The project cost $140,000. The new courts were installed where the park district’s hockey rink used to be, and the park district is selling the boards that surrounded the rink to offset a portion of the cost of the pickleball courts.