By Donald Wittkowski
The pickleball craze is coming to Sea Isle City.
Pickleball players will get their own courts this summer once the city completes construction on vacant land on West Jersey Avenue where the old Sea Isle firehouse once stood.
It will be free to play on the two courts. Since there will be no reservations for the courts, pickleball games will be played on a first come, first served basis.
City spokeswoman Kathleen Custer said the courts have been paved, but fencing still must be installed around the site before it is ready for pickleball players sometime this summer. She noted the city plans to open the courts “as quickly as possible.”
Sea Isle now joins other Jersey Shore towns in responding to the growing demand for pickleball, a tennis-like game played on a badminton-sized court using paddles and a whiffleball.
Ocean City recently converted three former artificial-turf tennis courts at 18th Street and Haven Avenue, behind the Ocean City Intermediate School, into 12 pickleball courts that have an asphalt playing surface.
Up to this point, Sea Isle’s pickleball players have had limited options. Custer said the city currently sets aside two tennis courts for pickleball games on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Dealy Field athletic complex. Those tennis courts are also lined for pickleball play.
When the city’s antiquated former firehouse at West Jersey Avenue was demolished in May, space opened up for construction of the two new pickleball courts.
“This way, people have the option of playing pickleball every day,” Custer said.
The pickleball site is adjacent to a city playground and basketball courts on John F. Kennedy Boulevard.
A community survey conducted by the city in 2015 asked the public for suggestions on what should be done with the land once the firehouse was demolished. The top answer was to convert the site into recreation use. The city responded by choosing to build pickleball courts there.
“Pickleball is something that people have been asking for for several years. It is growing in popularity,” Custer said.
