Reedley opens two new pickleball courts at Sports Park

Reedley turned a $100,000 grant into two playable pickleball courts at Reedley Sports Park on June 24, giving local players their first dedicated public space at the site and setting up a larger buildout to eight courts total.

The opening matters because Reedley players had been piecing together court time wherever they could find it. Before the Sports Park project, they leaned on Kings Canyon Unified School District courts, Reedley College courts, the community center, and even temporary indoor markings, all with tightly restricted public access. For players like 20-year-old Lukas Rosas of the Fresno State Pickleball Club, that shortage meant commuting between Fresno and Reedley just to get on court.

The new courts were funded by the Sierra Kings Health Care District, which helped push the project from planning into concrete access. City officials and community members gathered for the ribbon cutting, and the ceremony included remarks from Mayor Matthew Tuttle, City Manager Nicole Zieba and Sierra Kings Health Care District CEO Chinayera Black Hardaman. After the ribbon was cut, the district raffled off pickleball gear and the new courts quickly filled with pickup games.

The opening is only the first phase of a larger plan. Reedley says the Sports Park site is expected to grow to eight courts, which would give the city a far more substantial home base for amateur play and reduce pressure on the nearby facilities that have carried demand until now. The question is no longer whether Reedley wants pickleball space, but how quickly the remaining six courts can be funded and built.

That buildout has been years in the making. Planning for pickleball in Reedley surfaced as early as 2016, and a Reedley City Council discussion on April 11, 2023 moved forward a plan to redirect $2.2 million originally intended for Sports Park soccer fields to pickleball courts. Earlier reporting says the Sports Park master plan dates to 2008, and by 2025 the city had already put more than $2 million in general-fund money into the park after unsuccessful grant attempts.

Sierra Kings Health Care District has already shown it sees pickleball as part of a broader access strategy. In 2024, it approved an $18,000 grant to pay city staff to supervise use of KCUSD and Reedley College courts during public hours, a stopgap that reflected how limited public access had become. The June 24 opening gives Reedley a permanent start, and the first two courts may be the clearest sign yet that Sports Park is moving from long-running plan to regional destination.