Indoor pickleball facility coming to Chubbuck
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CHUBBUCK — An indoor facility for a fast growing sport is coming to Chubbuck.
An indoor pickleball facility called Upper Level Pickleball will be constructed right across from the Idaho Central Credit Union corporate campus. The facility is anticipated to open for business by sometime around June 2024.
“It’s a need and a growing sport,” said Josh Ellis, co-owner of Chubbuck Village Development and co-owner of Upper Level Pickleball. “Having a background in new sports and athletics, it’s time to get something here in this community.”
Ellis said that his interest in pickleball started when his son started playing the sport after two of his friends got him into it. Then, when he went through St. George, Utah, he noticed tennis courts being converted into pickleball courts.
“It was becoming a big trend,” Ellis said.
Ellis describes pickleball as “a combination of tennis, ping pong and some people would say badminton.”
The game is played by two or four people on a court that’s 44 feet long and 20 feet wide with a 34 inch high net, and the players hit a hollow plastic ball back and forth until one side is unable to return it. For comparison, a tennis court is 78 feet in length and 36 feet wide.
Upper Level Pickleball will have ten championship sized pickleball courts, which have a buffer around the regular size court making them 64 feet long and 40 feet wide. There will be an upper viewing level for spectators with food and drink options.
They expect to host pickleball tournaments and hold their own on a monthly basis, or possibly even biweekly. Some tournaments will even have a cash prize, as people put money into the pot to participate.
Ellis said there are pickleball tournaments being held in places like Sun Valley and Ogden that people from the Portneuf Valley travel to.
“Once we’re able to build this, we’re gonna be able to draw in a lot of people from other areas,” Ellis said. “So, there’s also some economic advantages that (we’ll) enjoy as we bring people in from out of town.”
Ellis said that something that sets Pickleball apart from other sports is that people of different ages can compete against each other.
“My son and I can’t do a tennis tournament together because of my age and his age, but he and I can enter in and play in a pickleball tournament together,” Ellis said. “That’s just an awesome opportunity, for him and I to be able to get out there and play together and to also play competitively.”