Pickleball enthusiasts in Denver were disappointed when Congress Park, one of the city’s most popular places to play the game, closed its courts on April 2, 2021. The Department of Parks & Recreation decided, due to conflicts with neighbors over parking and noise, permanently end the game’s play at the location.
However, there is still hope for pickleball players in Denver. The city’s Parks & Recreation department has updated its Outdoor Pickleball Courts map to show at least six parks where people can still play the game. These include the Northfield Athletic Complex, Martin Luther King Jr. Park, Skyland Park, Huston Lake Park, Bear Valley Park, and Eisenhower Park.
Despite the closure of Congress Park’s courts, some members from the Facebook group Denver Pickleball United: Supporting Open Play and Community continue to meet up at other places, with the page hosting chats for play at Huston Lake, MLK, and Northfield to help members coordinate and return lost items to each other. The group’s new description emphasizes promoting equity and sharing the limited resources of courts in the Denver Metro area.
If you don’t want to pay and are willing to share the courts with others, you can head to any of those six parks to catch a game. Alternatively, you can check out the city’s list of indoor pickleball courts to discover one of the nearly twenty recreation centers where pickleball is an option.
While Denver’s future regulation of pickleball is up in the air, there are still plenty of places to play the beloved sport in metro Denver. So, grab a racket and head to one of these beautiful parks to enjoy playing the game you love.
