Paramus opens four new pickleball courts at Petruska Park upgrade project

Four new pickleball courts at Petruska Park opened to the public on Thursday, April 23, giving Paramus its first visible payoff from a larger $1.3 million upgrade package that also reaches beyond the baseline lines and into the surrounding streets. The opening turns a long-discussed court project into something players can use now, while the borough continues work on the rest of the park and nearby traffic improvements.

For local players, the biggest change is simple: Paramus now has four dedicated public courts where there had not been one before. Borough officials had already been talking about a pickleball court in 2023, and by January 2026 they were telling council the court would be finished in early spring. The timing matters in a sport that has kept growing across New Jersey and nationally, with USA Pickleball reporting 13.6 million players in 2023. Four courts will not solve every scheduling headache, but they do give the borough a fresh public option and a new place for open-play rotation, beginner sessions and casual games close to home.

What makes the project stand out is that Paramus did not treat pickleball as an isolated amenity. In January meeting minutes, borough officials said engineers were also working on ADA upgrades at Petruska Park, Reid Park and the playground. The same broader effort includes the Farview Avenue and Midland Avenue intersection improvements, which the borough said would begin in spring 2026. That sequencing suggests the courts were planned as part of a bigger mobility-and-access project, not just a ribbon-cutting for a trend sport.

Petruska Park itself carries local history that runs deeper than the new lines on the surface. Paramus says the park was dedicated as Michael Petruska Jr. Memorial Park after Michael Petruska Sr. donated about 11 acres of land in memory of his son, Michael Petruska Jr., who died in a plane crash at age 24. The borough has long used the park as a major municipal space, which helps explain why officials put it near the center of a public-works package that blends recreation with infrastructure.

The new courts mark an important first phase for Paramus pickleball, and they do so in a way that is likely to matter far beyond the park fence. By pairing court access with ADA work and intersection upgrades, the borough has made the sport part of a larger everyday-use plan, one that should shape how residents move through Petruska Park for the next stage of the project.