A new pickleball park is coming in southeastern Caddo Parish. Stacey Brown, the executive director of Visit Shreveport-Bossier, says pickleball is very popular in the area, and the new park is designed to attract pickleball tournaments.
“We have a lot of people who are involved in pickleball and travel to tournaments outside the area, and we’ve not been able to bring the larger tournaments because we just haven’t had the courts,” Brown said.
Brown says even before construction starts, organizations are already making travel plans to Shreveport to hold pickleball tournaments.
“We do have a number of pickleball organizations that are actually kind of waiting to be able to sign on the dotted line. We’ve already showed them some preliminary sketches, and they are ready to come, Brown said.
Brown says the pickleball park will be designed to be able to host large-scale tournaments.
“They’ve been working with some of the major pickleball organizations to make sure that the courts are facing in the right direction. We’ll have some shade structures on some of those and make sure we do those right,” Brown said.
The project is not without controversy – several residents spoke out against it, and three of the nine commissioners voted against it. But Brown says with the tourism dollars that will come with this pickleball park, it will pay for itself.
