Philippines plans 16-court pickleball centre open to public in Cavite

A 500 million sports project in Vermosa is set to give Philippine pickleball something it has never had on this scale: a permanent, purpose-built home that is open to the public and designed to feed an elite pathway at the same time. The Philippine Tennis Center for Excellence Inc. and Ayala Land formalized the partnership in late April, with Rommie Chan, Nona Torres, John Estacio and Tin-Tin Ofilada present as the plans for the Cavite site moved into the next phase.

The centre will carry 16 dedicated pickleball courts, eight tennis competition courts and one center court. It will also include a gym, pro shop, café-restaurant, bar, a possible golf simulator and athletes’ quarters for 60 to 80 trainees. PTCEI says the pickleball courts will not be reserved for national-program players alone. They will be open to the public, with access to coaching, competitive play and recreational use across different levels, a structure that makes the project more than a training camp and more than a club.

Chan has framed the development as the next step for the Philippine Tennis Academy, which was founded in 2011 as a private initiative to discover and develop young tennis talent. The academy will use the Vermosa site as its main training base, with Chan pointing to Alex Eala as the kind of athlete the system should help produce: first scholarship players, then players with the tools to turn professional. PTCEI says the project still has to secure DENR, government and local government permits by September 2026, with ground-breaking targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026, construction beginning in January 2027 and inauguration planned for April 2028. The deal is covered by a 20-year lease.

The scale matters because pickleball in the Philippines has grown fast but unevenly, from its first known clinic in Cebu in 2016, led by Sara Ash, to the first dedicated venue in Makati in 2017 and street pickleball in Ortigas Center in 2018. The Philippine Pickleball Federation now says it has 283 member clubs, and the sport took another step toward formal competition with the first Philippine Pickleball National Championship in Marikina City from May 30 to June 1, 2025. The federation says it is recognized by the Philippine Sports Commission and the Philippine Olympic Committee and is a founding member of the Global Pickleball Federation.

That makes Vermosa more than a ribbon-cutting story. It is a test of whether the country can turn booming participation into a real pathway, with coaching, rankings, junior development and hosting standards all in one place. Ayala’s existing Vermosa Sports Hub already has athletics and aquatics facilities, a fitness and sports science lab, and a 30-room athletes’ dorm, so the new centre deepens an estate-wide sports ecosystem that could give the Philippines a more durable edge among Asia’s emerging pickleball markets.