Indoor pickleball company planning Lansdale site
LANSDALE — A quiet industrial park off of Church Road could soon be the site of one of the area’s fastest-growing trends.
Dill Dinkers Pickleball, a national chain of indoor outlets for the rapidly-growing racquet sport, has confirmed they’re planning to come to Lansdale.
“These are facilities designed for everybody, from a 16-year-old kid who’s just experimenting with pickleball, all the way up to a casual 80-year-old that just wants to stay active,” said Andrew Wakefield, regional company developer for Chester and Montgomery counties.
Pickleball is a racquet sport similar to tennis, but designed for all ages, that has rapidly spread across the nation and the region in recent years.
Region sees craze
Hatfield Township converted tennis courts to pickleball in 2014 when residents pushed for courts there, Upper Gwynedd followed suit in 2016, and North Wales started hosting pickleball tournaments at a tennis court in 2022 .
Montgomery Township offers pickleball lessons and open play in their township community and recreation center on Stump Road, and in Towamencin, residents pushed back against a proposal to add pickleball to Fischer’s Park earlier this year, citing concerns about the noise and changing a passive park to an active use.
In Lansdale, borough staff added pickleball stripes to a tennis court at Memorial Park in 2021 and then to a tennis court at Fourth Street Park in 2022, and in 2023 began offering programs to teach the sport over the summer. According to borough parks and recreation staff, the town currently has four courts at each of those two parks, and in 2022 held two fall clinics with 29 participants; in 2023 the numbers grew to three classes and 38 participants, with registration now open for the 2024 pickleball classes starting on May 1.
Chain of indoor courts
Dill Dinkers is a chain of indoor pickleball facilities that currently operates or is developing sites in Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, and South Carolina, with plans recently announced in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina. The company’s website now lists a Lansdale location, with an address of 1180 Church Road.
“The area they are looking at is a portion of the former Organon space on the northeast corner of the building closest to the Pennbrook train station,” said borough Director of Community Development Jason Van Dame. To do so, they’ll need a special exception from the town’s zoning hearing board, which could be heard when that body meets on April 16 or May 21.
A page for the Lansdale site on the Dill Dinkers webpage adds details: the site will have restrooms, a ball machine free for members, leagues for all levels of play, an online reservation system, a shop, and an event space usable for birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, corporate events and more.
Wakefield said Thursday that building, which will contain 11 pickleball courts and roughly 37,000 square feet, was chosen for several reasons: it’s close to the train station, has plenty of parking, and could be ready to open by the end of summer.
“Dill Dinkers’ model is to go in and find what we call low-hanging fruit: commercial and retail properties that have the right column spacing, and ceiling height, and require relatively limited internal construction. So that keeps the input costs low, and allows us to run low membership and court pricing costs,” he said.
“We’re not building out new country clubs based around pickleball. These are facilities designed for people of all ages, physical health, competition levels, to come in and play,” he said.
Player-friendly amenities
The Lansdale site will include a new, cushioned floor that’s meant to have more give for knees and ankles than an outdoor asphalt surface, and the company has already seen “a substantial amount of interest” in contract time and memberships. Membership sales will start within the next few weeks, and include discounts for the first year.
“We will run, not only tournaments where people are able to come in and play each other, but also have open plays and structured events. If we have 10 courts, we might have 60 to 70 people we allow to sign up, in different groups, based on skills and whatever their competition level is,” he said.
Dill Dinkers also lists a pending site in Hatboro on their website, to be located at 330 S. Warminster Road, with similar amenities and a planned 15 courts and 47,000 square feet, according to Wakefield. Current plans call for the Lansdale site to have roughly eight to ten employees onsite from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and the building itself would be available to members 24/7.
The internal layout will look generally similar to other Dill Dinkers facilities featured on their website, and yes, they’ve heard the concerns about noise levels.
“It makes the community a little more comfortable with pickleball coming to town, if they’re not hearing it from the backyard. From an inside perspective, we’ll put things on the walls, we’ll take efforts to dampen the sound, but the main reason we have it set up indoors is for people who want to not have to deal with the weather,” he said.
“No wind, no extreme heat, no cold, and then when we’re indoors, it’s much easier to offer structured programming. We control access to the building, we sell memberships, and that means people are paired with people, or given the opportunity to sign up for programs, that just don’t exist outdoors,” Wakefield said.
Wakefield said the company is interested in finding other sites in the region.
“It’s still not gonna be enough. There is an incredible amount of demand out there for these, so we have plenty more of these facilities planned for the next few years,” he said.
For more information visit https://dilldinkers.com/pa/lansdale/church-road/
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