Over 1,200 new indoor pickleball facilities have opened in the last two years. Here's why hygiene amenities belong in the construction plan, not the post-opening wish list.
The Indoor Pickleball Boom Means New Facilities. Here's What to Build In From Day One
Introduction
If you're breaking ground on a new indoor pickleball facility, you're part of one of the fastest capital deployments in the fitness and sports industry right now. More than 1,200 new indoor pickleball facilities have opened across the US in the past two years, pushing the combined market, operating revenue plus capital investment, past $3 billion, and the pace shows no sign of slowing in 2026.
A meaningful share of that growth is happening in cold-climate markets that never had year-round pickleball access before: Wisconsin, the broader Midwest, and Canadian cities where outdoor courts sit unusable for four or five months a year. These are genuinely new facilities serving genuinely new demand, which means owners are making decisions right now about what goes into the build.
Here's the opportunity most new facility owners miss: hygiene amenities are dramatically cheaper and easier to design into a new build than to retrofit into an operating facility later. If you're still in the planning phase, this is the moment to get it right.
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Why New Construction Is a Different Decision Than Retrofitting
Established clubs adding a footwear hygiene amenity have to solve for existing plumbing, existing floor plans, existing electrical capacity, and existing member traffic patterns that already flow a certain way. It's doable, but it's a retrofit, with all the constraints that word implies.
A facility under construction has none of those constraints yet. Electrical runs, floor layout, and traffic flow are all still on the drawing board. Adding a footwear sanitization kiosk to those plans costs a fraction of what it would cost to add the same amenity after the concrete is poured and the walls are up, because you're not working around anything, you're building around it.
Owners planning new facilities right now are in the best possible position to make this decision, and most don't realize the window closes the moment construction wraps.
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What Cold-Climate Markets Specifically Need to Plan For
New facilities in cold-climate regions carry a specific dynamic that warm-weather markets don't: players arriving indoors as their only pickleball option for months at a time, often stepping directly from snow boots into court shoes with no seasonal transition period.
That means higher session frequency per player during peak winter months, since indoor courts are the only option rather than one of several. It also means players who may not have an established indoor-court hygiene routine yet, since many converted from summer outdoor play where airflow and sun exposure did some of the work that indoor conditions don't.
A facility opening in a market like this has a genuine first-mover opportunity: be the venue that solves a hygiene problem players didn't know they'd have once they moved from outdoor courts to a sealed, climate-controlled building for the entire winter.
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The Amenity Gap in the Current Facility Boom
Most of the 1,200-plus new facilities that have opened in the last two years look remarkably similar: multiple courts, a pro shop, some seating, maybe a small food and beverage operation. Amenity planning has largely followed the same template facility to facility.
That sameness is an opportunity for any owner willing to differentiate. In a market flooded with new construction, players comparing three or four similar new facilities within driving distance will notice the one that offers something the others don't. A footwear sanitization kiosk, still uncommon at pickleball facilities generally, is exactly the kind of visible differentiator that gets mentioned in reviews and player group chats before the facility has even had time to build a reputation the traditional way.
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Where to Plan Placement During Design
If you're still working with an architect or facility designer, these are the placement principles to bring into that conversation now, while walls and electrical are still flexible:
Between court exits and the pro shop or lounge. This is the highest-traffic path in almost every pickleball facility design, and placing the amenity here captures nearly every player, every session.
Near check-in, not buried in a back hallway. First-time visitors, and in a new facility, everyone is a first-time visitor for a while, form their impression of what the facility offers within the first few minutes. Visibility from check-in does real work here.
With dedicated electrical capacity from the start. Retrofitting power for an amenity after construction is one of the more expensive corrections a new owner can face. Planning the electrical run during design avoids that entirely.
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Building the Business Case Alongside Your Construction Budget
New facility construction budgets are already accounting for court surfaces, lighting, HVAC sized for a cold-climate building envelope, and standard amenities. Adding a footwear hygiene amenity to that budget at the planning stage is a rounding error compared to the overall build cost, and it's a decision made once rather than revisited expensively later.
Owners who build this in from day one aren't just avoiding a future retrofit cost. They're opening with a differentiator that the next 1,200 facilities entering the market still won't have.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to add a footwear sanitization amenity during new construction versus retrofitting later? Costs vary by facility layout, but the core savings come from avoiding demolition, floor modification, and unplanned electrical work required in a retrofit. Building it into the original electrical and floor plan is significantly more cost-effective than adding it after the fact.
Is this amenity worth it in a market that already has several new pickleball facilities? Yes, arguably more so. In a saturated new-construction market, differentiation matters more, not less, since players have several similar options to choose between.
Do cold-climate facilities really see different usage patterns than year-round outdoor markets? Generally, yes. Facilities that are a region's only winter pickleball option tend to see concentrated, high-frequency play during colder months, increasing the cumulative footwear hygiene need per player.
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*Freshtrax footwear sanitization kiosks are designed for exactly this type of placement. [Learn about becoming an owner](https://getfreshtrax.com/owners), [see how the technology works](https://getfreshtrax.com/how-it-works), or [download the ROI Blueprint](https://getfreshtrax.com/) to see the full financial model.*