Mountain View Approves Indoor Pickleball Facility for Year-Round Community Play

Mountain View's zoning administrator signed off on a single-court indoor pickleball facility following a public hearing that drew more than 50 letters of support, clearing the regulatory path for what could become the only dedicated indoor court option in a city where outdoor play gets squeezed by limited public inventory.

The approved project belongs to Chris Robinson, operator of Ten Zero Sport, who plans to convert a vacant warehouse at 838 Independence Ave., near the Palo Alto border, into a bookable indoor court. Robinson spoke at the March 11 hearing. "I'm just excited to get the court open and have people use it," he said.

The facility's structure sets it apart from anything currently available on the Midpeninsula. Robinson wrote to the city that Ten Zero Sport would be the first court in Mountain View or Palo Alto allowing coaches to book time independently, without requiring club membership. Beyond coaching slots, the court would operate on an hourly rental model open to public reservations, and local players could book private sessions with friends outside of any organized league or club framework.

The demand behind those 50-plus letters reflects a real squeeze. Mountain View currently offers just three dedicated pickleball courts and six shared outdoor courts at Rengstorff Park. That's nine courts, including shared ones, for a sport that has grown faster than municipal infrastructure can keep up with. City officials have been actively trying to expand the public court count but have run into siting problems: finding a location the surrounding community will accept has repeatedly stalled those efforts, most visibly in the campaign Mountain View residents mounted to keep pickleball out of Cuesta Park and its annex.

An indoor facility sidesteps those neighborhood friction points entirely. Weather cancellations, noise complaints from adjacent residences, and the limits of shared-use outdoor space all become non-issues inside a converted warehouse. Year-round play, coaching programs, and community programming were cited in the approval as the project's core offerings.

The zoning administrator's sign-off moves Ten Zero Sport from permit review into the next phase of development at 838 Independence Ave. Construction timeline and an opening date have not been publicly confirmed.