New ‘it’ amenity at South Florida luxury condos? Pickleball courts

Real estate loves to be in on the next big thing. And lately, it’s the meteoric rise of pickleball.

South Florida’s luxury condo developers have jumped on the bandwagon, adding a new weapon to their amenities arms race: pickleball courts. Condo towers by Jorge Pérez’s Related Group, Camilo Miguel Jr.’s Mast Capital, and Carlos Rosso’s Rosso Group, among others, are all slated to offer pickleball facilities.

Aside from curb appeal, developers say pickleball is an obvious choice for their amenity packages, as they are relatively cheap to install and take up minimal space. The courts are 44 feet long and 20 feet wide, and can cost between $20,000 and $45,000 to build, according to online estimates from The Pricer.

(Tal Aventura)

On top of the relatively low cost to build, courts actually get used.

The paddle sport, often described as a cross between tennis, ping-pong, and badminton, caught the attention of amateur athletes across the country during pandemic lockdowns, and has risen in popularity since then. And in developers’ eyes, it is squeezing out tennis.

A mad dash to cash in on the earning potential of the sport led to the creation of Major Pickleball League, which now boasts celebrity owners like LeBron James, Tom Brady, and Eva Longoria. Naomi Osaka is a part-owner of the Miami Pickleball Club.

Stephen Colbert recently hosted a celebrity pickleball tournament called “Pickled.” George Clooney plays pickleball. Grandmothers do, too.

Yet, a lack of courts for all the picklers clamoring to play has put a damper on pickleball’s rise. USA Pickleball reports more than 10,000 registered pickleball facilities across the country, with more courts being added every year. Still, conflict has sparked between tennis and pickleball players, as the two groups have had to battle for court time in communities around the country, as the New York Times recently reported.

(The Standard Residences)

Matthew Rosenblatt, president of Miami-based 2151 Development, is among the developers of Tal Aventura, a 26-story, 86-unit condo tower in Aventura that is set to include pickleball courts. It launched sales in November.

“Everybody and their mother is playing pickleball today,” he said. “You have kids playing pickleball, you have parents playing pickleball. It allows all ages and demographics to come together.”

Rosso, founder and CEO of Rosso Group, is going all-in on pickleball. He is incorporating the “very social sport” into the Standard Residences he is planning in Midtown Miami and One Park Tower at SoLé Mia in North Miami that he is developing in partnership with Turnberry Development.

He calls pickleball “very on-brand with the Standard,” a 12-story, 228-unit condominium that launched sales in November. Rosso said the Standard’s pickleball offerings will include a team, an instructor, and Standard-branded rackets for residents to use.

“It’s part of the whole story, part of the whole ambience you’re creating in this building,” he said.

Meanwhile, at One Park Tower, Rosso and Turnberry Development are not just opting for courts, but a pickleball club facility at the heart of the development.

Michael Internoscia, a broker with Fortune Christie’s International Real Estate and sales director for One Park Tower, said the pandemic forced people outdoors again, and that shift has stuck.

Catering to an audience seeking to be active and social is a boon for the sales team, Internoscia said. “Having a project with the proper amenities for the proper marketplace makes any project easier to sell,” he said.

Other condo towers in the works with pickleball courts include Ritz-Carlton Residences, Pompano Beach by Edgardo Defortuna’s Fortune International Group and Ricardo Dunin’s Oak Capital; Ugo Colombo’s Vita at Grove Isle; and Cipriani Residences Miami and the Perigon in Miami Beach, both by Miguel Jr.’s Mast Capital.

Of all the developers buying into pickleball, Pérez’s Related Group, along with its partners, has the most projects with courts in the works. Casamar Residences, Residences at Bal Harbour, St. Regis Residences Miami, and Casa Bella Residences by B&B Italia are all set to include pickleball courts. Both Casamar in Pompano Beach and Casa Bella in Miami are slated for groundbreakings in the first quarter, according to a spokesperson for Related.

Casamar, Related Group’s 21-story, 119-unit luxury building, is among the first in this new wave of planned luxury condo developments to include pickleball courts.

Wendy Marks, Casamar’s sales director, is credited with bringing pickleball to the project. “We were pretty much finished with Solemar, and started looking at Casamar –– what’s the latest and greatest?” she said. “What can we have that other developments don’t have?”

Marks said pickleball was easy to incorporate into a condo project that targets a wealthy buyer.

“A lot of the clientele that we see are affluent. They live in country club gated communities. Pickleball is incorporated into that lifestyle,” she said. It made sense for Related to “incorporate what they’re used to in a luxury condominium.”

Another selling point for pickleball courts: People use them, Marks said. “We ultimately want to position Related where we are placing amenities into these developments that people will use on a regular basis,” she said.

The elephant in the room: tennis. Once a hot amenity, the sport’s popularity has declined since its late-20th century heyday, leading to a string of articles published over the last decade with headlines like Bleacher Report’s “Why Is American Tennis Dying?”

The sport saw a 22 percent bump in participation in 2020, according to the U.S. Tennis Association, but developers aren’t sold anymore.

“You still have those die-hard tennis people,” Marks said. But, “pickleball, you don’t need as much space. If we had the option to do one over the other, we would do pickleball.”

Rosenblatt also considered tennis for Tal Aventura, ultimately choosing the smaller pickleball courts to capitalize on limited space and, “give our residents more bang for their buck,” he said.

“Everyone seems to like it,” he said. “We’ll see over the course of time if it sticks.”