Woodstock ups its pickleball game with plan to convert tennis courts

Pickleball, the sport growing in popularity across the United States, may soon have permanent courts at Woodstock parks.

Woodstock’s city staff members said they’ve gotten a lot of feedback from residents about pickleball, and Woodstock’s recreation center offers drop-in pickleball most days of the week.

“There’s a huge desire for pickleball,” City Manager Roscoe Stelford said.

The Woodstock City Council voted on Tuesday to hire a contractor to convert some of the tennis courts at Emricson and Olson parks to pickleball courts.

Woodstock Executive Director of Operations Christina Betz said the contract stipulated the courts needed to be completed by June 2024.

“We were hoping to get it this year,” Betz said.

The north tennis courts at Emricson Park are the ones that will be converted to pickleball courts. City documents show the court as having two rows of four pickleball courts each, with tennis nets dividing the middle. The south tennis courts at the park will remain tennis courts.

Two permanent pickleball courts will come in at Olson Park as well, and a civil engineer for Woodstock, Jack Dell, said there are currently temporary courts there.

City officials added that the tennis nets also make it easier for the city to convert the pickleball courts back to tennis courts if somehow the pickleball fad fades. Betz said the work to revert back to tennis courts would mostly involve restriping the courts.

However, she is confident pickleball is not a passing fad.

“I think it’s going to stick,” Betz said.