North Bay adds pickleball courts at three parks, expands outdoor access

North Bay is heading into peak outdoor season with six new public court sites that put more pickleball and basketball space on city parks instead of a single destination complex. At Circle Lake Park, West Ferris Lions Park and Graniteville Park, the city added two pickleball courts with nets and a mini basketball court at each location, a setup that should give recreational players more places to get on court before summer demand tightens.

The May 25 release framed the work as part of a broader push to enhance outdoor recreation spaces across North Bay. Bourke Playground received a full basketball court, while Greenhill Park and Kinette Playground each got a half basketball court. That mix matters because the city is not just painting lines for one sport, but using existing park space for shared-use activity that can serve different age groups and different pickup patterns over the course of a day.

The additions fit a long-running Parks Master Plan adopted by North Bay City Council in 2021 after months of development and stakeholder input. The plan lays out a 20-year roadmap for an equitable network of park spaces and says the city already has a high-quality parks inventory, so the emphasis should be on adjusting and developing amenities rather than rebuilding the whole system. In practice, that means court sports are being spread across neighborhoods instead of concentrated in one private or centralized facility.

That approach also reflects earlier planning. North Bay had already identified a lack of basketball courts, and the 2021 draft plan listed new pickleball courts at Bourke Park and a full court basketball and ball hockey surface at Circle Lake Park among select projects for the plan’s lifetime. The city’s multi-use recreation courts behind the North Bay Transit Terminal, which opened in April 2022 with one full-size court and one half-size court, had already shown how a single surface can be marked for multiple sports over time.

The latest upgrade arrives after some local players had already pushed for better conditions at Bourke Playground. In May 2024, residents complained to council about the court surface there, and the city had set aside $100,000 in its 2024 capital budget for Bourke enhancements. Now, with new courts at three parks and additional basketball space at three more, the city has widened access ahead of the busiest months for outdoor play.

Councillor Justine Mallah, who chairs the Community Services Committee, called the upgrades “a great example of making better use of existing community spaces,” and said they give residents more ways to stay active through the summer. The timing lines up with a busy local calendar too: the North Bay Pickleball Club’s Spring Fling drew 124 players from May 14 to 16, and Pickleball Ontario says North Bay will host the Northern Regional tournament from July 10 to 12.