Most cities get one shot at a pickleball club with real staying power. Scottsdale just got a second, and the company handing it out put its own headquarters inside the building.
On July 10, 2026, Center Court Pickleball Club opened a 35,000-square-foot facility near Shea Boulevard and Loop 101, its fourth location in the Valley and its second inside Scottsdale city limits. The other two cities in Center Court's network, Glendale and Gilbert, each got one club. Scottsdale got two: the original at 7000 E. Mayo Boulevard, which opened in late 2024 near the Mayo Clinic campus, and now this new 13-court flagship at 10220 N. 90th Street. That imbalance is the story here, not the ribbon cutting. A company that could have spread its growth evenly across four different Valley suburbs chose instead to put its second bet, and its new corporate headquarters, right back in the same city.
The count that gives it away
Center Court now operates 51 indoor courts across four clubs: the original Scottsdale-Mayo location, a club near 59th Avenue and Bell Road in Glendale, one at Williams Field Road and Val Vista Drive in Gilbert, and the new Scottsdale-Shea facility. Scottsdale alone accounts for roughly half the company's total court count in the Valley.
That's a meaningful signal for anyone who already lives near Shea and the 101. Companies expanding into new metros usually spread risk across neighborhoods first and concentrate later, once demand is proven. Center Court skipped that step in Scottsdale. It went back to the same city with something bigger than its first location and moved its training center and headquarters in with it. For residents, that reads less like a gym opening and more like a company betting its own address on the neighborhood's appetite for the sport.
What's actually inside the new building
The Shea location isn't a scaled-up copy of the Mayo Boulevard club. It was built out of the former Big Lots space inside the Scottsdale Fiesta Retail Center, and the company used the extra square footage to add things the original location doesn't have: sound-absorption technology tuned for a 13-court room, professional-grade lighting designed to cut glare during evening play, fully equipped locker rooms with showers, and a Power Plate recovery program included with every membership, covering guided warmups, mid-match resets, and post-game recovery.
Ryan Trefry, the company's Vice President of Operations and a two-time national pickleball champion, framed the build-out as a deliberate departure from a simple courts-and-nets model:
"From the lighting and acoustics to our coaching, programming and recovery spaces, every detail was designed to help players enjoy the game at their best."
CEO Tim Keightley put the expansion in blunter terms, calling it a bet on the people who showed up before the doors opened rather than the square footage itself. Founding memberships were sold ahead of the July 10 opening, and the club now runs three standard tiers, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond, alongside a newer Couples membership aimed at players who want to book court time together rather than compete for separate slots.
A former Big Lots, repurposed for a very different kind of retail
The building's backstory says something about how Scottsdale is filling in its older retail corridors. Cresa managed the project, Clune Construction handled the build, and Corgan took on design, turning a vacant big-box shell into a 13-court destination with a pro shop, dining space, and a social lounge attached. Construction broke ground in February 2026, roughly five months before the doors opened on July 10.
It's a pattern worth watching if you spend time in this part of Scottsdale: a big-box space that couldn't hold a retail tenant found new life as a recreation and social hub instead. Arizona's broader pickleball boom has been substantial enough that AZ Big Media has covered the state's case for being a pickleball capital in its own right, and this stretch of Shea Boulevard is a small, physical piece of that argument.
What playing there actually looks like
If you're picturing a converted gym with a few taped-off courts, the Shea location doesn't match that. Center Court is a partner of USA Pickleball and a member of the Arizona Pickleball Players League, and it runs Golden Ticket tournaments that give local members a direct path to the USA Pickleball National Championships. That's a real competitive pipeline sitting inside a neighborhood facility, not a marketing line.
For anyone deciding whether to check it out, here's what separates the tiers and what to expect walking in:
- Gold, Platinum, and Diamond memberships scale up in court-booking privileges, clinic access, and league priority
- Couples memberships let two people share a membership built around playing together rather than splitting court time
- Founding Member rates were locked in for those who joined before the July opening and won't be available to new members going forward
- Open play, leagues, and clinics run daily, with certified coaches leading structured sessions for beginners through tournament-level players
- The recovery suite is included with every tier, not sold as an upgrade, which is a meaningful difference from the original Mayo Boulevard club
The original Scottsdale-Mayo location, run day to day by General Manager Christine Chowning and Pickleball Experience Manager Josh Readinger, still operates as its own club with its own community and its own recurring leagues. The two Scottsdale locations aren't competing for the same players so much as splitting the city's demand into two distinct scenes, one closer to the Mayo Clinic corridor and one anchored at Shea and the 101.
Why the headquarters detail matters more than it sounds
Plenty of companies open a fourth location and call it expansion. Fewer move their own corporate offices and training center into that fourth location. Center Court did both at once in Scottsdale, which means the people setting policy for all 51 courts across the Valley now work inside city limits every day. If a scheduling change, a new tournament format, or a membership policy shift is coming to any Center Court club in the Valley, it's getting decided a short drive from Loop 101 and Shea Boulevard.
That's a small operational fact, but it tells you something about how this company sees Scottsdale relative to Glendale and Gilbert. Headquarters don't usually land in the newest market by accident. They land where the leadership already expects to spend the most time.
For residents near Shea, Indian Bend, or anywhere else in Scottsdale who've watched pickleball go from backyard hobby to a genuine local infrastructure story, that's worth knowing the next time a court reservation app shows a wait list. The demand didn't appear overnight, and neither did the company's decision to build its second home right where the first one already worked.
If you want a closer look at what else is changing in this part of the city, from restaurant openings to trail access, our Scottsdale neighborhood guide tracks the local details as they happen, not just the headlines.
Curious what a shift like this means for property values or timing near Shea and the 101, or anywhere else in Scottsdale? Karen's Collection offers a Concierge Consultation built around the same kind of local detail, not a generic market report.
