“The people in Glendale have not been able to play tennis for years,” gripes City Manager Chuck Line.
That's because it's pickleball that's all the rage in the small, metro-area municipality now — with players taking over the courts at the edge of the Infinity Park complex at Birch Street and Kentucky Avenue on a weekly basis, to the point where the Glendale City Council has had to step in.
“An ordinance of the city council of the city of Glendale, Colorado establishing and separating city owned tennis and pickleball courts and prohibiting certain activities on the courts to safeguard diverse recreational opportunities and protect the playing surface of the courts" has been approved by councilmembers and is heading for a final vote on September 5.
Glendale has some experience in ushering in a growing sport: In 2007, the city became a destination for rugby with the construction of Infinity Park. But pickleball is a whole other beast.
Glendale has some experience in ushering in a growing sport: In 2007, the city became a destination for rugby with the construction of Infinity Park. But pickleball is a whole other beast.
In Denver, the Congress Park pickleball courts were shut down last spring because of noise complaints from neighbors. Down south, the Centennial City Council imposed a temporary moratorium on court construction within 500 feet of homes over similar concerns.
In Glendale, the city council's pending ordinance will bar people from bringing pickleball or similar nets to tennis courts, placing chairs or stools on courts, using snow shovels or scrapers on courts, and marking courts with permanent or temporary lines. The last three items will be illegal on both pickleball and tennis courts; violations could result in a misdemeanor.
In March 2022, the City of Denver sparked outrage when it criminally charged 71-year-old Arslan Guney for marking on courts at one of its recreation centers, though the charges were eventually dropped after the city reached a settlement agreement with Guney.
In March 2022, the City of Denver sparked outrage when it criminally charged 71-year-old Arslan Guney for marking on courts at one of its recreation centers, though the charges were eventually dropped after the city reached a settlement agreement with Guney.
Line maintains that Glendale is not playing ‘gotcha’ with its citizens.
There will be large signs telling people not to play pickleball on tennis courts or scrape the courts in the winter, according to Line, who adds that the city has never run into people clearing snow off the courts for tennis because the cold quickly disrupts air pressure in tennis balls — something that doesn't happen with pickleball’s wiffle ball-esque plastic orbs. Scraping the courts degrades their surface, he notes.
“We told the pickleball people not to do it and they ignored us,” he alleges. “So if there was any snow in the forecast, we’d have to lock the gates.”
The pickeball craze and rugby's arrival in Glendale are not as similar as people may think, Line says. He estimates that Infinity Park is only used for rugby about 5 percent of the time. The rest is devoted to sports like ultimate Frisbee, soccer and flag football.
Because a rugby pitch is so large, multiple games can be played on the field at once. Leagues can also rent the space, and the city leaves the lights on so kids can play soccer there in the evenings when it isn’t otherwise in use.
Court configurations are also not comparable: The striping for multiple sports on a pitch isn’t as distracting as pickleball lines, because field sports tend to cover large distances.
“In tennis, that’s where you hit the ball and where you’re looking,” Line says of the pickleball markings. Although the city did initially attempt to mix the two sports, striping lines for pickleball onto its tennis courts, tennis players found it too distracting, he maintains.
Even if Infinity Park wasn’t occupied with rugby every day, Glendale knew that it could get many uses out of the area, explains Line, which isn’t the same in a mixed tennis-pickleball scenario. Now the city plans to separate the sports, building four new pickleball courts at Glendale Park, at the intersection of East Center Avenue and South Elm Street.
That decision was made in part because the tennis courts cap the city’s old water tank, so it’s imperative that the surface not be marred by dragging in nets or scraping — both of which are associated with pickleball.
The tank itself hasn’t held water since the late 1960s; Line says the structure capping it off, which is crumbling, has needed refurbishment for about twenty years. Glendale is putting $100,000 toward the project, he adds, most of which will go toward the materials below the tennis courts, where construction crews are fixing chipped concrete and replacing about 30 percent of the existing concrete structure. The city will use epoxy to paint courts for tennis and basketball.
Repairs shouldn't be needed again for at least a decade, Line says.
Glendale Park will be shiny and new, complete with pickleball courts, once it renovates.
City of Glendale
Glendale Park (formerly Mir Park) was previously owned by the city but physically located in Denver. After a slight boundary change in the late 2000s, it now sits within Glendale city limits.
Pickleball is just one element of a giant improvement project there funded by a $500,000 grant from Arapahoe County, Line says.
Once completed, Glendale Park will have all new playground equipment, a dog run, a more defined grass field and new toilets — in addition to the pickleball courts. Line tells Westword that Glendale is essentially doubling the space where people can play pickleball because only two games were typically played on the tennis courts at a time, to avoid balls crossing onto other courts.
Unlike in Denver, noise complaints aren't expected to be an issue.
“We’re Glendale, and we’re not single-family houses,” Line says. “People are more used to noise.”
The planned courts are about 300 feet from the nearest apartments. The closest buildings in the other direction — roughly 260 feet away — are garages, which should help buffer the noise for the apartments beyond them.
Plus, Line points out, not many people in the 365-acre city have homes with yards big enough to put courts in that could disturb neighbors. And if it does become an issue, he says, the city can always set the lights to a timer to ensure that people aren’t playing late at night.
“We need to be respectful of both sports, and we can’t do that without an ordinance,” he concludes.
