Shopping malls and large-scale stores too… Pickleball is the savior of a series of empty stores due to the “collapse of the retail industry”?

• In America, pickleball courts are replacing anchor tenants in old big stores and shopping malls.
• The large, high-ceilinged empty space is perfect for creating a pickleball court.
• Invented from the likes of tennis and table tennis, pickleball is one of America’s fastest growing sports.

Changes are coming soon to the closed Macy’s in Richmond, Virginia.

Floors and ceilings are scraped and walls are repainted. A new air conditioning system that circulates air will also be installed. Lines are drawn, nets are hung and courts (12 sides) are constructed.

The former department store will be reborn as a facility where you can enjoy pickleball.

“Once it’s all done, no one will know it’s a Macy’s unless you’ve been shopping all your life,” said Jon Laaser, co-owner and COO of the facility Performance Pickleball RVA, Insider. told to

The facility will also host lessons and major competitions, and will also include a pro shop, bar and restaurant. Lazer and co-owners envision Performance Pickleball to offer a “premium” experience, aiming to have the facility open by December.

Richmond’s Macy’s in the Regency Square mall isn’t the first shopping mall, former department store, or former hypermarket to turn into a pickleball facility. The retail collapse that bricks-and-mortar stores have faced over the past decade has left large empty spaces eagerly awaited for reuse. And now, entrepreneurial pickleball enthusiasts have come to the rescue.

Lazer said former anchor tenants like Macy’s are a perfect fit for the pickleball facility. These spaces are essentially empty “big boxes” in declining malls. Regency Square Mall was “a jewel of West Richmond’s retail and social scene,” but in recent years it has begun to lose momentum, and Pickleball is just one piece of the mall’s revival. No, he says.

Indoor pickleball facilities are very popular

Derived from tennis, badminton and table tennis, pickleball is now considered one of America’s fastest growing sports. By 2022, 8.9 million Americans will be playing pickleball, according to data from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. As a result, the number of companies making pickleball equipment has exploded, and recently, a facility dedicated to pickleball has also been created.

One such facility is The Picklr, which operates six facilities in Utah and Colorado. The company’s CEO Jorge Barragan told Insider that it plans to open 25 more stores this year and 150 franchised stores over the next three years. And The Picklr is targeting former large stores.

“Everyone has a place nearby that you drive by and think, ‘Oh, I wish there was something there.’ ‘I’m happy to take it,’ and not many people raise their hands,” Barragan said.

The Picklr is different. Barragán sees a wave of chain store closures, including household goods chain Bed Bath & Beyond, electronics retailer Best Buy and party goods specialty store Party City. He said that he would like to work directly with the liquidator to secure some of the vacant space.

Of course, it is not easy to transform a place that used to be a specialty store for household goods into a sports facility.

Barragan notes that floor tiles often have asbestos under them, toilets are old and frankly “pretty disgusting,” and 1980s and 1990s buildings often have low ceilings. They say the sprinkler system is too low and needs to be raised. Even the overhead fluorescent lights you see in department stores aren’t ideal for pickleball facilities — sometimes they’re so bright that you can barely see the ball as it flies by.

Still, Barragan doesn’t think these vacant stores will stay that way for long.

“Now when I travel around to meet realtors, they say, ‘Oh, you’re the third pickleball facility person I’ve met in a month,'” Barragan said.

“Whoever gets there first… it’s like a gold rush.”