Local pickleball business beats competition for 4th Street installation

A combined effort from Santa Monica’s pickleball community led by Stephanie McCaffrey of the Promenade’s Picklepop has been awarded the space that was originally going to feature the 360-degree immersive Haibu dome. The Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. (DTSM) board of directors was informed of the decision during the monthly meeting in November.

A Request for Proposals (RFP) appeared on the DTSM website in late August, for “Immersive Outdoor Temporary Use (1318 4th Street)” — the address of the Parking Structure 3 site — after the Haibu project ran into difficulties with funding. There was a unanimous vote to move ahead with that activation in November of last year after a presentation to the DTSM board of directors.

The concept that has now been awarded this space is a combination of pickleball courts, padel courts and a “luxury dog park” and has been crafted from the collaborative efforts of Jonathan Neeter, owner of the Pickleball Center at 2505 Wilshire Blvd, Mary Pat Faley, owner and CEO at Pickletown at 1431 Lincoln Blvd and McCaffrey.

According to the group, which calls itself Pickle Padel Paw, they intend to partner with local food and beverage operators, including Heavy Handed, Santa Monica Brewing and Thirst Trap Cocktails. Pickle Padel Paw beat New York-based CityPickle in a process that has not been without controversy.

A “selection” committee consisting of Martin Ronzio-Garcia, DTSM Business & Community Development Manager, together with three members of City staff from the Economic Development Manager’s team made a decision to in fact recommend CityPickle, not Pickle Padel Paw and each business was notified accordingly.

The proposals were then seen by DTSM’s own Marketing & Business Development Committee, made up of Julia Ladd, Lucian Tudor, Bruce Fairty, Josh Gilman, Berta Negari and Edna Galindo.

Galindo is in fact the property manager for Jeff Appel, who owns the building at 1231 Third Street, where PicklePop is located (the former site of the Adidas store). She apparently recused herself from the presentation to the committee.

“We talked about the diversity of uses and the committee and had a really great point, which is that risk comes in many forms, and there’s a risk of dedicating the site entirely to pickleball, as opposed to diversification, which would be pickleball, padel, and then also the dog park,” said Andrew Thomas, CEO of DTSM.

In short, after this meeting, the offer to CityPickle was rescinded and given to Pickle Padel Paw. Unlike instances in the past, including the selection of Covered 6 and not long after, the selection of Legion, the process of the committee narrowing down the contenders before a final vote is taken after the top two or three actually present to the directors, was not followed and the board’s vote last week only served as a formality.

“With the security, we had the committee just for that, and this time we did practical [sic] the same thing. It just was a pre-screening before coming in front of that committee, which we did with the security as well. I think that’s the easiest way to explain it,” Lucian Tudor, DTSM board member, responded when asked why both pickleball organizations had not been permitted to present to the board.

“It’s hard to speak about how excited we are for this opportunity … but I think if I had to sum it up, I would say that we all have put blood, sweat, tears, capital, everything we have, into activating community [sic] within this city,” McCaffrey said at the meeting.

“I think with three of us already here, operating pickleball sites on their own, we started to ask [our] customer base … what do you want to try? What’s going to get you out there, and what’s going to trigger you to bring more people … and that’s how we arrive at the conclusion that this form and variation of activities would be the absolute best thing for our business, the best thing for our city,” she said.

The proposal includes two 68 ft by 35 ft padel courts, four 60 ft by 30 ft pickleball courts, beer garden seating, a food stand area, a “premium dog park” and a bathroom area. Dogdrop, a venture capital backed dog daycare center founded in Los Angeles, is set to be the operational advisor of the canine component. And according to Pickle Padel Paw, they estimate a projected total annual revenue for the concept to be $2.9million.

The demolition of Parking Structure 3, located on 4th Street between Santa Monica Blvd and Arizona Ave, began in March 2022 following a failed legal effort to stop the project. Since 2018, the City has been working on a plan to demolish the 50-year-old parking garage and replace it with a multi-level affordable housing project, which would include ground floor retail and subterranean parking. However, since demolition was completed in November 2022, the site has remained empty amid continued concern over the local economy.

scott.snowden@smdp.com

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