DALLAS — If employees won’t come back to the office for work, maybe they’ll return to play pickleball.
The hottest recreational sport is becoming the newest office amenity in the never-ending quest to provide companies with a reason to one building over the competition. Along with coffee bars, tenant lounges and fitness centers, pickleball courts are the new frill landlords are adding to their arsenal of must-haves.
Downtown Dallas’ Fountain Place skyscraper – the green glass rocket that’s one of the most recognizable landmarks on the skyline – is building a tenant lounge and club with golf simulators, a hunting simulator and pickleball court.
Construction is set to start next month on the 14,000-square-foot, $5 million addition to the Ross Avenue office tower, according to planning documents filed with the state. The new tenant facilities, which include a lounge bar area, is set to open early next year.
Atlanta-based architect Phillips is designing the project.
It’s the biggest upgrade to the 60-story Fountain Place since 2019, when owner Goddard Investments completed a major overhaul of the tower built in the 1980s. In 2014, Goddard paid almost $200 million for the 1.2 million-square-foot high-rise.
But the skyscraper has been challenged to up its occupancy levels because of large blocks of sublease space and downtown workers heading home during the pandemic. Only about 60% of office workers are back at their desks in the Dallas area, according to the latest estimates.
Fountain Place isn’t the only property hoping to lure workers with a chance to play pickleball.
Downtown Dallas’ Santander Tower recently constructed a pickleball court on the 48th floor of the 50-story Elm Street high-rise, where work is also wrapping up on the first of 228 apartments added to the office building. Dallas-based Invited installed the court in its Tower Club on an experimental basis through July. The court is rentable, with proceeds going to charities.
Northwest of Dallas in the Cypress Waters development, which is home to more than 16,000 office workers, developers are adding pickleball and volleyball courts and a nine-hole putting green to give workers and residents a place to play.
Likewise, Allen’s 135-acre Farm mixed-use development on State Highway 121 is adding pickleball courts and an entertainment center that will offer a miniature golf course, a 24-lane bowling alley, a laser tag arena, axe throwing, escape rooms and a restaurant and bar.
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