Glenview pickleball courts moving forward after concerns

As many as four people at a time can play pickleball but it took dozens to get the ball rolling on new pickleball courts being built at Glenview’s Valley Lo Club.

That’s because the Village and the club worked with neighbors who had concerns regarding excessive light and noise that would be generated by people playing the game, which is soaring in popularity across the country.

Earlier this year, the Glenview Board of Trustees gave preliminary approval on a request from the Valley Lo Club, in the 2200 block of Tanglewood Drive, to add six pickleball courts to the club and gave it a zoning ordinance to construct a parking lot on the property, officials said.

But when residents living near the club heard about the project they cried foul, fearing that bright lights on the courts and noise from players could be a nuisance.

Officials with the club met with neighbors and Village officials as plans for the courts were coming together and agreed to add a sound barrier, more fencing and landscaping and to modify the hours of operation, said Judy Higgins, General Manager at the Valley Lo Club.

“We had a meeting with them early on and subsequently additional meetings,” Higgins said. “It was just working back and forth on what they were looking for as far as sound and light mitigation. In the end we presented something that worked.”

The Glenview Board of Trustees still has to sign off on the plan and is expected to take it under consideration in the next few months, said David Just, community engagement manager with the Village.

“The Village’s public development review process is designed to give commissioners and the community an opportunity to identify potential concerns with a development,” he said. “If changes are identified, they get incorporated into the approval process and recommended for consideration by the Board of Trustees.”

Higgins said the club is adding the courts in response to a growing interest in the sport nationwide.

“It’s a fun game,” she said. “It’s social. It’s easy to learn and play. Obviously there’s all different levels from beginner to advanced.”

According to the Wikipedia website, pickleball was named the fastest-growing sport in the United States by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, and by 2023 it was estimated to have over 4.8 million players.

It goes onto say that Pickleball is a racket or paddle sport invented in 1965 in which two (singles) or four (doubles) players on a court and hit a perforated, hollow plastic ball with paddles over a 34-inch-high net until one side is unable to return the ball or commits an infraction and that the game can be played indoors and outdoors.

“While it resembles tennis and table tennis, pickleball has specific rules, paddles and court dimensions,” the website says. “The court is 44-feet long and 20-feet wide, and the paddle is larger than the one used in table tennis. The hard plastic ball used in pickleball produces less bounce than tennis balls. On each side of the net is a 7-foot area (2.1 m) known as the non-volley zone (or the kitchen), where the ball must bounce before it is hit.”

Higgins said the club hopes to start construction on the six courts by early next year and that if everything goes as planned, the courts should open next June.

“We have an active membership here and some have already been playing in other places,” she said. “We have a very large ‘paddle’ program here as well so it just blends perfectly with what the club offers.”

Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.