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Walter Reed Outdoor Pickleball Court Project

Location

2909 16th Street, Arlington, VA 22204 View Map

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Status

Planning

A community engagement process will be launched to solicit input from all stakeholders to inform the project design.

NOTICE: The County will be performing a topographic survey at the Walter Reed Community Center and Park during March. Please reach out to Bernadette Grullon if you have any questions.

About the Project

Pickleball is a relatively new and popular sport, and it is the only court sport that does not have a dedicated outdoor facility in Arlington.

The purpose of this project is to convert the Walter Reed outdoor tennis courts to dedicated, single use pickleball courts. The Walter Reed tennis courts were selected for conversion though an outdoor courts assessment and criteria that help identify single-use tennis and basketball courts that are good candidates for multi-use and/or a dedicated pickleball facility.

Currently, the tennis court area is striped with six pickleball courts and the basketball court with three. The tennis court area will be converted into nine dedicated pickleball courts. The County is committed to incorporating sound reduction measures as part of this project. The basketball court will be converted back to its original use.

The scope for the pickleball court project includes:

9 dedicated pickleball courts at the tennis court area (e.g., court pavement, netting, lighting, fencing, and associated sport equipment)
Sound reduction measures
Seating and shade
Pathways with ADA access improvements
Stormwater management
Signage
Landscaping
Basketball court restriping

About the Process

2017: Pickleball striping was added to the basketball court at Walter Reed to pilot the multi-use of basketball and pickleball.
April 2019: The Public Spaces Master Plan (PSMP) was adopted in April 2019 and calls for the County to "establish a dedicated pickleball facility to meet the growing demand" in Action Step 1.4.3. on page 65.
2019: As there was growing interest in pickleball additional striping of courts occurred at the tennis courts at Walter Reed to allow pickleball users to play.
2020: During the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond, pickleball boomed in ways that staff and the community could not have expected.

2021: The Arlington Outdoor Courts Assessment first community engagement helped the County learn more about the outdoor court utilization in Arlington: where people play, what sports they play and the amenities they look for. Based on community feedback we were able to create criteria to help us develop locations for multi-use courts that would include pickleball and a location for a dedicated pickleball facility.
May 2022: The Arlington Outdoor Courts Assessment second community engagement ran from May 25 - June 8. Engagement materials can be reviewed through this narrated video or PDF. The PowerPoint and report detail what was learned from this engagement process. The second engagement process was designed using input from the project’s first engagement and courts scoring for multi-use and dedicated play.
May 2022: The Arlington Outdoor Courts Assessment second community engagement used input from the first community engagement along with courts scoring for multi-use and dedicated play to helped staff to create the second engagement. The second engagement was open from May 25 - June 8 and engagement material may be reviewed through this narrated video or PDF. This PowerPoint and text document comprehensively share what we learned from the second engagement process.
July 2022: The Arlington County Board passed the FY 2023- FY 2033 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). For information on pickleball as part of the FY 2023-FY 2032 CIP process please see County staff responses to questions raised by the County Board during the June 14, 2022, County Board Work Session. C2-Parks-Pickleball-Courts.pdf (arlingtonva.us).
December 2022: Based on what we learned and the passage of the FY 2023- FY 2033 Capital Improvement Plan, a dedicated pickleball courts will be created where the outdoor tennis courts are at Walter Reed Park. A community engagement process will allow for any interested stakeholders to provide input on the project. Engagement will occur in 3 phases to hear input, provide design concepts and garner input, and again with a final design and comment period.