Filmmaker Brett Drogmund to convert warehouse to pickleball in El Segundo

Adman and film producer Brett Drogmund has inked a deal for a 25,300-square-foot industrial building in El Segundo to open a club for schmoozing over the pops of pickleball.

Drogmund, founder of California Smash Pickleball and Social Club, signed a 30-year lease for the warehouse at 815 North Nash Street, the Los Angeles Business Journal and Commercial Observer reported. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Brokers Gary Horwitz, Caroline Bethel and Kamil Agha of JLL represented California Smash in the lease, while Jim Sullivan and Andrew Hardin of Gateway Business Properties represented Gretchen B. Farrell Trust, which owns the 62-year-old building.

California Smash intends the warehouse-to-pickleball conversion to be equal parts pickleball and social club, fusing competition with revelry. Design build-outs are in the works for $6 million.

The club aims to open in December with 10 padded indoor pickleball courts, plus a full-service bar, restaurant and a dance floor, with live music accompanying the action.

“With the growth of pickleball and consumers’ need for social interaction and entertainment, we wanted to create a clubhouse-type destination that encourages conversation, competition and camaraderie,” Drogmund said in a statement.

Drogmund is the founder and executive producer of Skyscraper Productions, a full-service ad agency and production company based in El Segundo. He has a history in both animation and documentary film production, according to the Business Journal.

He said he was inspired by Topgolf, which opened two years ago in El Segundo, which bridges golf with entertainment. California Smash would rent courts by the hour, ranging from $40 to $80, depending on the time of day. Paddles and balls would cost extra.

“I didn’t want to open just a gym where people came in and worked out and sweat and left,” Drogmund told the Business Journal. “That’s not what I wanted to offer the community. I wanted to offer the community the ability to connect.”

Bill Bloodgood, an executive at Newmark Group in the South Bay, said that while conversions like tennis courts or turf to pickleball are common, converting an industrial warehouse for pickleball is rare.

Pickleball is the country’s fastest-growing sport, with 13.6 million players last year, a 51.8 percent leap from 2022 and 224 percent from 2020, according to a Sports and Fitness Industry Association report.

All those players mean thousands of dedicated courts — a natural bedfellow of commercial real estate as pickleball projects take up former industrial or retail buildings, according to the Observer. 

That includes a new 35,500-square-foot lease in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., in April. And the purchase of a 5-acre site outside Miami at the end of last year. 

— Dana Bartholomew

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