The City of Yucaipa has been working with Yucaipa Pickleball Inc. in developing a permanent pickleball facility. It all started on March 22, 2021, when a council chamber full of pickleball players united to persuade the City Council to allocate money for permanent courts. On that evening the City Council pledged $400,000.
So we were off to find a home for this new facility. After several locations were considered, it was decided to build courts at the Yucaipa Community Park. However, preliminary designs were estimating close to a $1,000,000 for a facility there. So back to the drawing board!
As costs kept rising, another year had gone by, and in June of 2022, we went back to the City council to ask them to keep Pickleball a priority. Pickleball was selected as their number 1 priority again for funding and at the next meeting , they allocated an additional $100,000 towards the courts.
In the meantime, we reviewed other locations. It was finally determined that the 7th Street facility with its existing covered courts, would make a great home for pickleball. On Sept. 12, 2022, the Council approved a Master Plan facility at the 7th Street location. That is the picture shown here.
The new facility will consist of 9 permanent courts. The first phase will be 4 courts replacing the existing skate board park. This area will also have a cover similar to what is over the basketball courts. The second phase will be in the parking lot to the east. The old theater building will be removed and 5 permanent courts will be installed there. A new restroom is also proposed.
We will continue to have use of the basketball court area, but with temporary nets as we have today. So all together there will be 9 permanent courts and the basketball area with 4 additional painted temporary courts and 2 taped courts. As maintenance and improvements are budgeted for the basketball area, we hope to have new surfaces and paint lines with more space between courts in the near future.
But the wheels of the government turn more slowly than a careful cross-court dink and the construction process doesn’t seem to be happening. But the good news is, the city has gotten a bid for the fabrication of the cover over the existing skate board park. It is now projected that it will be installed in the Summer of 2023. It will be a few months after that before all the construction is completed in the skateboard park area.
We will be meeting with the City regularly and be a part of their next budget cycle to secure funds for Phase 2. In the meantime, we continue to enjoy the only covered facility in the area where we can play rain or shine and look forward to more courts to come.
A few recent slides from a presentation at the Monday, January 23rd city counsel meeting.
