Ralph B. Clark Regional Park adds four pickleball courts in July upgrade

Ralph B. Clark Regional Park will shut down all of its court space July 6 for a compact upgrade that resurface courts 1 through 3 and turns tennis court 4 into four pickleball courts by the end of July. The project leaves the Buena Park park with a cleaner tennis surface and a bigger pickleball footprint, but only after every court sits idle during the work.

OC Parks announced the plan June 19. The county said all of the courts will be closed while crews work, and it expects the job to be finished by the end of July, a short window that keeps the disruption tight but hits right in the middle of summer recreation season. For players who use the park’s four lighted tennis courts, the change is simple: access disappears for several weeks, then returns with one less tennis court and four dedicated pickleball courts in its place.

The move fits the layout of a 105-acre regional park at 8800 Rosecrans Avenue in Buena Park, where OC Parks also highlights a rich fossil record tied to more than 10,000 years of natural history. That mix of heritage site and active recreation space has made Ralph B. Clark a familiar county destination, and the court project shows how Orange County is reworking existing land rather than waiting for new parcels to open up. Converting one tennis court into four pickleball courts is an efficient way to add capacity, especially in parks where court demand keeps climbing.

Orange County has already used the same formula elsewhere. OC Parks completed a similar tennis-and-pickleball enhancement at Laguna Niguel Regional Park in May 2026, converting one tennis court into four pickleball courts and leaving that site with two tennis courts and 12 pickleball courts open to the public free of charge. The countywide push is not happening in a vacuum either. Voice of OC reported in June 2024 that Orange County had 224 public pickleball courts with 59 more planned, and in January 2025 said the county still had more than 200 public-access courts as cities continued to add or restripe space. Ralph B. Clark now joins that broader buildout, and when the work wraps, it will return with more dedicated pickleball space than it had before.