Coconut Grove residents have embraced the sport of pickleball despite a lack of public places to play America’s fastest-growing sport.
To hear Coconut Grove resident Josh D’Alemberte tell it, pickleball makes the Grove that much groovier. The problem, though, is that there are few places in the Grove where people can actually play this fast-growing sport.
Sure, there are a few condos in the Grove – including Grove Towers, Yacht Harbor and Grove Hill – that have pickleball courts, but those facilities are for residents only.
There’s Kirk Munroe Tennis Center as well, but those pay-to-play pickleball courts are designed for tennis, with roll-away nets and blended (read confusing) lines for pickleball.
Silver Bluff developers Grant Savage and Peter Gardner are planning to install 12 pop-up pickleball courts on Grand Avenue near Douglas Road, but those courts won’t be open until January at the earliest.
All of which leads us to the only two free, public-access pickleball-only courts in the Grove, located at 2975 Oak Avenue. These recently-created courts don’t have an official name, but D’Alemberte – who plays there often – said it’s known as “The Oak.”
Since the courts are located right next door to Fire Station No. 8, you can also call the site “Firefighters Park.” Mostly, though, you can call this place “popular” since there’s a WhatsApp chat group with more than 500 players who have visited these courts.
One of those players is Jacqueline Green, who believes that this little slice of pickleball heaven is quintessential Coconut Grove.
“I love that the players who come here are of different skill levels, different ages and different backgrounds,” Green said. “Everyone plays together, and it’s a reflection of the diversity of the Coconut Grove community.
“That’s the way Coconut Grove is. There’s no pressure playing here. It’s just a lot of fun.”
What wasn’t so much fun was what community activists – including Lily Azel, Kathy Hidy and D’Alemberte – went through to transform The Oak from one dilapidated tennis court into two quaint pickleball courts.
For years, Azel had written emails, made phone calls and attended City Commission meetings, all in an effort to get the City of Miami to create pickleball-only courts.
In 2021, she went to a planning meeting titled Reimagine Miami. At that meeting, Azel met Barbara “Barbie” Hernandez, who at that time was the director of parks for the City of Miami. Shortly after that, there was a breakthrough.
Said Azel: “(D’Alemberte) called me and said, ‘There is this one tennis court that is abandoned. We can put two pickleball courts there.’
“So, I contacted Barbie.”
Hundreds of calls and emails later, Azel finally received some surprising news from Omar J. Bayona, another City of Miami employee.
Toward the end of 2022, Bayona told Azel that the court in question was not City of Miami Parks property but instead belonged to Fire Station No. 8.
Then, working with two city commissioners – Sabina Covo and the late Manolo Reyes – Azel and the other community activists got that court converted into a pickleball space.
The work was finally completed in October of 2023.
“This community really stepped up,” Azel said. “We were able to mobilize. We were calling and emailing.… I believe that it brought the community together, and it shows the power of people.”
D’Alemberte said that – before the conversion – he and other pickleball enthusiasts brought portable nets to be able to play at The Oak.
“We saw this under-utilized tennis court, and we started playing,” D’Alemberte said. “Pretty soon, the firefighters started playing with us.
“Then, we started our WhatsApp chat group, and we immediately had more than 100 people signed up.”
Initially, that chat group was used to see if they had enough people to play the next morning or afternoon.
But, in short order, nobody needed to send out a message as there were always enough players for a game.
Still, before the courts were converted and refurbished, there were issues.
“There were cracks on the old court,” D’Alemberte said. “When the ball hit one of those cracks, it would take a funny bounce, and we’d call for a ‘do over.’
“We used to say we had the worst courts with the best people.”
The courts are much better these days, and The Oak was recently the site for a pickleball tournament, hosted by Grove Pickles, a players group, and the Miami Firefighters Benevolent Association. Tournament proceeds benefitted both organizations.
“They say they want to use the money raised to reinvest into the courts,” D’Alemberte said. “Maybe they’ll put in a drainage system or add a third court, but it has yet to be decided.”
The end result is a net positive for Coconut Grove, D’Alemberte said.
“The Oak was once an eyesore. Now, it’s a community hub. Pickleball is doing here what it does everywhere it’s played – it builds community.”
Peter Gardner at Silver Bluff said that’s the intent behind the Grove Racquet Club, the pop-up sports facility he and partner Grant Savage plan to build on a vacant block of land on the south side of Grand Avenue between Plaza and Hibiscus Streets.
“We have this piece of property,” Gardner said. “Rather than just let it sit there, the idea was to do something for the community.”
Eventually, the developers plan to build a mixed-use development on the site with 176 market-rate apartments and street-level shops and restaurants. But Gardner said that project “won’t go vertical for many years,” hence the plan for the temporary club.
“The Grove is an active community,” Gardner said. “We feel this will be a wonderful addition. We feel this will activate the Grand Avenue corridor.”
The club will be open to the public either by membership, a daily fee or some combination of the two, with 12 pickleball courts, six padel courts and one tennis court.
The developers have also pledged to make the courts available to neighborhood youth in the West Grove community.
Gardner said the plan is to have clinics to engage young people in pickleball, which was the nation’s fastest-growing sport in 2024 for the fourth straight year.
For those who haven’t caught the pickleball craze yet, here are some stats that put the popularity of the sport in perspective:
According to a November 2024 report by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association and Pickleheads, the pickleball paddle market as of 2023 was worth $1.5 billion.
The report also found that:
There are 1,228 places to play pickleball in Florida – more than any other state.
Contrary to popular opinion about pickleball being an old person’s sport, the 25-to-34 age bracket is pickleball’s largest segment at 28.8%.
Over the past three years, pickleball has grown by an average of 311 percent.
There were 19.8 million pickleball players in the United States as of 2024. Three years earlier, in 2021, there were just 4.8 million players.
