Pickleball users who pick up the retail trade, industrial space while sports ring is spreading in New Jersey – Real Estate NJ

The Picklr, a fast-growing indoor pickleball franchise, opened nearly 40 locations in the US in 2024 and was planned to add more than 70 in 2025, including locations in Manahawkin and Fair Lawn. Courtesy: The Picklr

By Marlaina Cockcroftt

A national post-pandemic fitness trend is also a real estate trend in New Jersey, because indoor pickleball facilities are filled available spaces in the entire state.

The Jersey Pickleball Club, for example, opens its first facility in 13,800 square feet at Bell Works in Holmdel, while the Pickleball Kingdom franchise debuted a location of 41,000 square feet in Hamilton. The ACE Pickleball Club -Franchise will occupy 27,000 square foot in the Brunswick shopping center in North Brunswick, with Sportime Pickleball availability locations of 50,000 and 30,000 square feet in Wayne and Englewood respectively.

There are many people with money and passion for pickleball, said Scott Schaubiger, Chief Growth Mide from the Picklr, who watched a Midden-March opening for his new location with seven Court, 22,500 square foot in a shopping center in the Manahawkin part of Stafford.

Pickleball A mix of tennis, table tennis and badminton that attracts players about age groups and athletic skills is the fastest growing sport in the United States, with the number of players that almost doubles in 2022, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. That popularity has fueled the demand for pickleball facilities throughout the country.

Developers say that pickleball fits at locations, from stores to light industrial, because courts can operate in different spaces, depending on the type of facility and what it offers. Some only have courts, while others offer food and drinks and other facilities, such as member lounges that can generate a higher rent. Indoor facilities enable people to play all year round.

But Pickleball seemed like a gamble in 2020, when Nai Dileo-Bram & Co. A lease agreement of 11,200 square foot arranged in an industrial building on 19 Royal Road in Flemington for the newly formed Flemington Picleball Club. Marc Shein, a senior vice-president at Naidb, said that the company agreed to handle one of the first such facilities in the area because the building was zoned for recreation and was already air conditioning and heated.

We scratched our heads, how are you going to earn a living here? he said. Then pickleball courts started to pop up everywhere, including 527 Stelton Road in Piscataway, where Naidb arranged a lease in 2023 for an indoor sports facility of 17,500 square meters with pickleball jobs, badminton courts and affairs.

Shein estimates that there are now more than 70 pickleball locations in New Jersey.

New spaces include the 14-Court Picleball Kingdom on 1100 Negron Drive in Hamilton, part of a development by Denholtz. Kris Hurlbut, the senior vice president of leasing of companies, said it had had problems finding industrial tenants for the space before he came to terms with the franchise, whose big opening for February was set.

Hurlbut admits that Denholtz was hesitant about the deal.

I remember the pandemic, she said. We were hit by all our recreational tenants and it was difficult. Yet the franchisee was successful with other franchises, and Denholtz was able to get a market rate for space, so we felt very comfortable with him.

Others say that the Covid crisis is the reason that pickleball is catching. Schubiger, who lives on Morristown and Long Beach Island, said that the game brings people together after Covid: it is the human connection that we all want now.

Levin Management Corp. CEO Matthew Harding said people started playing outside during the pandemic.

Since then there has been an enormous growth in Pickleball, which supplies existing courts or addition of facilities outdoors. In the past year or two, he said, his franchises started building pickleball-specific facilities.

Levin Management used such a facility, Ace Picleball Club on 498 Milltown Road in North Brunswick, which is planned to open by the end of 2025. Fitness and entertainment are good additives for the retail trade, and the Pickleball Club is a great draw, said Harding.

The Picklr, for his part, was planned to hold his new opening of New Jersey on March 15 on 205 Route 72 West in Manahawkin, to replace what a bed bath was in the Kohls-Vererne Centrum. The facility had registered more than 400 members before they were opened, Schaubiger said, while another location, on 18-01 Pollitt Drive in Fair Lawn, opens at the end of March.

Schubiger, a franchisee with 15 units next to Chief Growth Officer, was convinced that Pickleball would be the next unicorn in franchising when he joined the Picklr in 2023. He called New Jersey the most appropriate environment for Pickleball because the very densely populated with a high family income, and everyone from the age of eight to 85 who can play a paddle. The Picklr expects to open more than 20 locations in the state in the next four years.

Pickleball facilities can be flexible because the courts are smaller than tennis or basketball courts or inner football fields, Shein said. What they need the most is sufficient parking space, clear height and wide column distance.

Harding said that even older industrial buildings have the necessary length of at least 20 feet of interior and lower rental prices than a shopping center.

As far as the retail trade is concerned, retail chains can be good candidates for pickleball clubs. Shein suggested Rite Aid of CFS, while Schaubiger Bed Bath & Beyond, Big Lots or Hobby Lobby Buildings mentioned. He said that the picklr is doing well in power centers such as the Manahawkin location, because people use the facilities for an hour or two, offering regular cars.

We said that kind of neighbors, he said.

The landlords said that pickleball does not need too much work for ownership. In general, the tenant handles the Interieurbuild -out -out, Harding said.

Opinions were mixed about how Pickleball will play in the long term. Hurlbut is not sure if all facilities will survive. Said shein, everything is cyclical. See how many years indoor racquetball courts, but they were converted into pickleball rights benches.

Schubiger, however, said that the pickleball -question is not close to the fact. New Jersey already has a professional team, the New Jersey 5S, and he thinks pickleball will move to high school and university sports.

Harding is not worried about losing steam in pickleball. But then he also plays. He said, I think it's here to stay.

Marlaina Cockcroft is a freelance writer based in New Jersey.