Planning for pickleball: Let’s have fun, but $5 million tax money ought to be enough
After a rocky start, it appears sanity may prevail on Wichita’s park budget, especially when it comes to the big pickleball scare of 2022.
There’s no denying the local popularity of pickleball, which is kind of like playing ping-pong on half a tennis court with a Whiffle Ball.
Existing pickleball courts are in demand, the game has invaded YMCA gyms in a big way and Chicken N Pickle, a pickleball-themed restaurant and bar on the upper east side, appears to be doing a land-office business.
At the recent City Council budget retreat, the council was presented a proposal for $3.3 million in capital spending for lighted pickleball courts around the city.
That’s in addition to a $3 million “Pickleplex” that the city’s already committed to building at South Lakes Sports Complex.
The Pickleplex will replace the soccer fields that used to be at South Lakes.
Those were torn out after the city spent $23 million on new state-of-the-art fields and facilities at the Stryker Soccer Complex in affluent north Wichita and privatized it. The city’s longtime nonprofit soccer league, based out of South Lakes, couldn’t compete with the new facilities and promptly went out of business.
One wonders whether the working-class neighborhood kids who played soccer at South Lakes would rather travel 22 miles to Stryker, or warm up to pickleball, a sport they probably never heard of.
But that’s a discussion for another time. We are where we are.
Wichita has four of the 10 top pickleball pros in America. But the game is particularly appealing for the shall-we-say “more mature” crowd because it’s faster than golf and doesn’t involve as much running around as tennis.
Playing doubles, it’s like the “Time Warp” dance in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” — “just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right.”
Parks and pickleball were a bit of a flash point at the council retreat. For years, council member Bryan Frye has been getting requests for a dog park in his northwest Wichita district.
He pointed out that the westernmost playground for pups is at 21st and Meridian — across the Big Ditch from the west side.
There’s about $1.3 million in the budget proposal for new dog parks — including at least one out west. But the discussion went sideways when council member Maggie Ballard, whose district includes the Meridian Dog Park, said it has “some significant issues” and the city should take care of what it’s got before building more.
Frye walked out of the meeting for a few minutes after muttering: “I should be building pickleball.”
He’s not wrong to be frustrated. The council has to cut $25 million in capital improvement projects before passing the budget and that could mean delays for long-awaited plans at Pracht Wetlands, Planeview Park and the green space formerly known as Clapp Golf Course.
In addition to the $3 million Pickleplex, with 20 tournament-grade courts and grandstands, the city also raised the sales tax around Chicken N Pickle to pay $2 million of the developer’s $10 million cost to build it.
That’s already a big investment of taxpayers’ money.
Fortunately, City Manager Robert Layton is planning a more sensible approach to picklemania going forward.
He said he intends to recommend that the council not spend the $3.3 million for additional lighted outdoor pickleball courts.
Instead, he’ll propose a cheaper alternative of continuing to restripe lesser-used tennis courts around town.
Layton said the situation reminds him of one he faced earlier in his career, when in-line skating and roller hockey were all the rage.
The fad faded out, but the concrete slabs on which roller hockey used to be played were easily converted back to other recreational courts.
The council would do well to heed the manager’s advice on this one.
