Two sets of three pickleball-specific sport courts are the preferred option of the Arlington government’s Department of Parks and Recreation for the grounds of Walter Reed Community Center, local officials announced Nov. 14.
If all goes as planned, reconstructing the existing tennis-pickleball courts for pickleball-only use will start by the end of 2024 and be completed in six to eight months, County Board members were told at their monthly meeting.
[Updated to include comments from neighborhood association and the Arlington Parks and Recreation Department.]
Whether the announcement reignite Arlington’s pickleball wars – which have been center on Walter Reed – remains to be seen.
Those living around the community center have vocally expressed displeasure at the noise that emanates from current pickleball play there, although county staff on Nov. 14 said acoustic fencing put in place has cut noise levels.
Despite opposition from neighbors, it was all but a sure thing that the parks department would seek to move forward on one of two proposals for pickleball at the site, despite a request from many (though not a majority) responding to a county-government survey for a pause to aggregate more data about the impact of noise on neighborhoods.
As part of the plan detailed to County Board members, the existing basketball court at Walter Reed would not receive pickleball striping.
There currently are 50 publicly-accessible pickleball courts in the county, including 15 indoor shared-use courts. As part of a planned Public-Spaces Master Plan update in 2024, county officials will look at longer-term actions to address the recreational activity, which has become popular in recent years.
(Although pickleball has been around for decades, it was so largely unknown just a few years ago that the Public-Spaces Master Plan adopted in 2019 didn’t even make reference to it.)
Despite the county government’s plans to keep on truckin’ when it comes to developing pickleball at Walter Reed, the adjacent Columbia Heights Civic Association remains critical. In an e-mail to county officials, the organization rapped the government’s data-gathering efforts, including an online survey on the issue.
“Members of the pickleball community recommended that their compatriots take advantage of the anonymous nature of the survey to submit it multiple times on different platforms, as well as indicate they were residents of Arlington County, the Columbia Heights neighborhood and specifically the 22204 ZIP code, even if they were not,” the civic association wrote. “This obviously concerns us and calls into question the genuineness of at least some portion of the feedback received.”
In a response, county parks director Jane Rudolph said the survey was just one sentiment-gathering tool, and “was never intended to be a statistically valid survey.” She noted that more feedback was being solicited through Dec. 8 on the plan presented to County Board members.
At the Nov. 14 meeting, County Board member Matt de Ferranti acknowledged that the passions of pickleballers sometimes rub neighbors of the courts the wrong way.
“We’ve got work to do to get it right,” de Ferranti said of striking a balance in the court of public opinion.