‘The People’s Court’ will bring pickleball, arcade and more to NE Portland

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - The Pacific Northwest is seeing a huge demand for pickleball. Now the popular game is coming to Northeast Portland in a new way!

The People’s Courts is set to open later this summer. Co-owner, Dave Sacks, says people don’t have many places to play especially indoors.

The 48,000 sq ft. space on NE 82 Avenue will have five full-size Pickleball courts, two “skinny singles” courts and a “dinkum” court, five bocce ball courts, six to 10 ping pong tables, and six to 10 cornhole courts, plus an arcade with classic and modern games, a one-of-a-kind nine-hole putt-putt style disc golf course, and a well-curated pro-shop. The outside will have six additional pickleball courts and a covered seating area for eating, drinking and socializing.

Two new restaurants, “The Kitchen” and “The Parlor,” will offer a bar and grill menu inside.

“It made a lot of sense to use the bones that we had in the building. So we’ve got certain things like beams and pillars that great barriers to just building exclusively pickle ball courts and we use those as guides to build these other types of courts and games,” says Sacks.

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Oregonians may be familiar with the building. It’s where the Lumberyard indoor bike park stood for ten years. In 2019, a huge fire broke out just yards away. The building avoided major damage, but the park closed in 2022.

”It was predominantly roof damage from embers having landed on the roof,” says co-owner, Dave Schrott. “The building itself is actually quite safe from fires, we’re fully sprinklered.”

Sacks and Schrott bought the property back in 2010. They chose 82nd Ave. because it’s central to Portland, but the area has been plagued with crime and crashes.

”There are changes happening ever since the city took over 82nd to improve the pedestrian aspects of 82nd,” says Schrott. “No doubt there are still some challenges to the areas as a relates to the traffic areas into the crime issues. We hope that our presence helps to again kind of improve the situation overall by bringing good energy to the area.”

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