Louisville Neighbors are Outraged by Pickleball Development at Joe Creason Park

Once every five years in the city of Louisville, there is a new multi-million dollar development that creates outrage. Most recently, the Hurstbourne neighborhood filed lawsuits to stop a TopGolf from developing at Oxmoor Mall. Now, neighbors are publicly protesting to stop the construction of a $65 million pickleball and tennis facility at Joe Creason Park.

The top story on all local TV channels Tuesday night was the protest held just around the corner of the Trevillian Way park at the Cyril Allgeier Community Center. Hundreds of angry neighbors chanted “Save Joe Creason!” to oppose the project.

My favorite quote from the WDRB story: “It seems to me that there’s plenty of empty buildings around town, like the Big Lots. Build courts in those buildings,” a Louisville woman said. “Don’t destroy our green space, and especially don’t do it behind our backs when we have no voice.”

The Big Lots line is great, but the second sentence gets to the heart of the community’s concerns. The Kentucky Tennis & Pickleball Center Inc. wants to construct a state-of-the-art facility with 36 tennis courts and 18 pickleball courts that will cover 25 acres of the 62-acre park that is across the street from the Louisville Zoo.

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Neighbors don’t want to lose their green space. That’s the problem with their argument.

“That’s frankly, technically not true. They’re saying 25 acres will be developed. That’s not true,” said Will Davis, the CEO of the development group. “We’re going to have only 12.5 of the 25 acres overall that will be hard-scaped, including the road, parking lot, and everything involved, as well as there’s 125 acres within the park area.”

There’s one other part that doesn’t check out. This new state-of-the-art facility will replace the Louisville Tennis Center, a facility at the park that has 11 tennis courts. It once hosted large tournaments with the likes of Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, and Billie Jean King, but the facility has fallen into disrepair.

There are beautiful areas of Joe Creason Park. The Nature Center and the lane down the hill near the flowing creek will be untouched by this development. It will just replace an eyesore passed by millions when they visit the Louisville Zoo and Lights Under Louisville.

I have never played one game of pickleball and showed up to one high school tennis practice. This development is not for me. But the city of Louisville is hemorrhaging business. Kentucky Fried Chicken is no longer in Kentucky. The Kentucky Tennis and Pickleball Center can not only be a place for local recreation, but also a destination for quarterly tournaments that brings money back into the city.

Mayor Craig Greenberg has publicly supported the facility. “This project won’t take away from the park—it will enhance it.” If you disagree, there’s another public meeting on the docket for this Saturday at St. X High School, beginning at 8:30 AM ET.

Like TopGolf, which completely resurrected the dying Oxmoor Mall, the outrage from nearby neighbors will slow down this pickleball development, but probably won’t stop it from happening.