Pickleball club based out of Lake St. Louis to build indoor facility this summer near Wavering Park

QUINCY — Pickleball enthusiasts Nathan and Amy Smith live in O’Fallon, Mo., and have found a home at the Paddle Up Pickleball Club, based in Lake St. Louis, Mo. However, when they head north to Quincy and Monticello, Mo., to see their parents, they can’t find an indoor facility to play in.

“When we would go home and there would be nowhere to play (during the winter), I would say (to her siblings), ‘You have no idea how good we have it,’” Amy Smith said. “Paddle Up just feels like home to me.

“We started out playing at a different club, and it was big city. I always felt like I didn’t know anybody. I’d show up, I wouldn’t know anyone. No welcome or anything. Then Paddle Up came to Lake St. Louis, and we joined. From the beginning, it felt like a community. It felt small, like everybody knows everybody. It reminded me of Quincy, and I wanted something like (Paddle Up) for Quincy.”

The Smiths are making that happen.

They are investing with Paddle Up owners Jon and Kelly Richert and Matt Landolt to build an indoor pickleball facility to 3731 N. Marx Drive, north of Sunbelt Rentals and near Wavering Park. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer, and the facility is expected to open in late 2025.

The pickleball club will feature at least 10 indoor courts with professional nets, outdoor playing surfaces and advanced lighting systems. The facility will have a pro shop for gear and apparel, lounge areas for spectators and concessions.

Nathan Smith said he wants shovels in the ground as soon as possible. However, the group wants to hear from people in Quincy and the surrounding area as to how popular the sport is here and how many courts will be needed.

“We need folks in the Quincy, Keokuk (Iowa) and Hannibal (Mo.) area to get on our website and express their interest, because that information is going to help us determine the size of the building,” Nathan Smith said. “We want people to play comfortably, and membership at some point will be limited. We want people to be able to come on and play. If we build a building for 10 courts, then we can only have so many people.”

Pickleball is widely recognized as the fastest growing sport in the country. The Sports & Fitness Industry Association reported 4.2 million Americans played pickleball at least once in 2020. Participation since has more than tripled, reaching 13.6 million in 2023.

The Smiths approached the Richerts, who opened their first Paddle Up facility in Lake St. Louis during the summer of 2023 and will open a second facility in Chesterfield, Mo., this summer. 

“We were like, ‘Oh, I don’t know. We’ve got a lot going on here and there,’” Jon Richert said. “They just kept telling us about Quincy and how much they’re committed to it and talking to us about the town, how it is kind of a smaller town and how there are so many sports enthusiasts there. There’s a lot of pickleball players there. … The more they kept telling us about it, and we were just like, ‘Yeah, this thing sounds like it could work out there.’

“It took us a little while, but I think we’re really catching the vision for what it could be at Quincy.”

Nathan Smith said he looked at several locations, including the former Bed Bath and Beyond building at 5110 Broadway and the former ShopKo building at 3200 Broadway — “I talked to those guys about three days before they put the RP Lumber sign up,” he said — before the decision to build was made.

“Some of the other locations where maybe the building would work, you would get into parking problems,” Nathan Smith said. “That’s when I approached Tory Kaufmann at the Marx Business Park, and that piece (of property) just seemed to fit really well. It’s going to be easy to develop.”

He said a concrete pad will be poured, and a metal frame building will be brought in.

Private courts can be rented by the hour. Paddle Up will be the site of recreational and competitive leagues and tournaments, daily open play sessions, professional coaching, and a host of social pickleball events.

“We like to tell people if you’re going to play here once a week or more, it makes sense for you to be a member of the club,” Matt Landolt said. “It really is a social club, and we’d like people to be members, but really what it is is a way to make it affordable for people who are going play a lot.”

Memberships will be limited at Paddle Up and not required to play. People who register early will have special perks and amenities, such as the inaugural Gem City Paddle Up T-shirt, and will secure a spot to become a founding member.

“It is a business that’s seasonal with ups and downs,” Jon Richert said. “What we’ve tried to do is create a club where it’s not just escaping the weather but it’s about playing with your community of players. We try to make it affordable for people who play a lot, where even if the weather is nice outside, I want to go play at Paddle Up, because that’s where my league or my friends play. 

“Public courts are fine, but you have to share with random people who show up, and there’s a whole etiquette thing of ‘Who’s going next?’ and ‘Who am I playing with?’ We totally support that, but for the people who really want to control their time and play, I want to play at this time on this day with these people.”

“When people come inside to play, they don’t want to go back outside,” Kelly Richert said.

Paddle Up Pickleball Club is registering potential members and founders at www.PaddleUpQuincy.com. Players also can learn about upcoming events at the Paddle Up Quincy Facebook page.

Jon Richert says he will come to Quincy on occasion as the facility as built and to help start the business. However, he’s also looking for local employees.

“We’re going to be looking for good people there to help run it — general manager, assistant manager, front desk workers, trainers,” he said. “We’ll do what it takes to make sure it gets up and off the ground running. If that means living in Quincy for a couple of weeks to get it going, that’s what we’ll do. But we want it to be locally run with good staff there from Quincy.

“This (building) won’t just be a box with some rectangles on the floor. It’s a club. We want to have areas to hang out, have birthday parties and play tournaments. We’re super excited to build it the way we want it, as opposed to fitting it into a previous department store. The interest level for us is going to really guide and inspire us to what we build.”