Tampa Pickleball Crew gets ready to open in Ybor City
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Dec 22, 2023

An indoor pickleball club meant to breathe new life into an Ybor City warehouse is nearly ready to open.

Tampa Pickleball Crew, owned by a partnership of four women, is in a 28,000-square-foot warehouse at 1701 E. Second Ave. Darryl Shaw, who owns property throughout Ybor and is a partner in the mixed-use Gasworx district, is the landlord.

It will officially open in early January.

The club sells monthly memberships starting from $84 for eight hours of monthly playtime. There are also drop-in packages available.

Tampa Pickleball Crew aims to solve a problem its owners faced: As the sport exploded in popularity, available courts became hard to find. And when the courts were available, Florida's heat or rainy seasons made outdoor play unbearable.

From Shaw's perspective, the covered pickleball courts are another way to bring foot traffic to Ybor City while Gasworx is still under construction.

“It activates the area,” he previously told the Tampa Bay Business Journal. “It’s not about the buildings — it’s about the people who are here, and it’s about amenitizing the district.”

The pickleball facility also advances another goal of Shaw's: adding daytime destinations to Ybor that aren't based on alcohol.

“It’s too heavily weighted toward late-night alcohol, and it’s taken me a while to understand that,” Shaw previously said of Seventh Avenue, Ybor's historic corridor. “It’s not looking at a specific business and saying they’re good or bad. It’s what does the public want when they come to Ybor? Or what’s stopping some of the public from coming to Ybor?”

Tampa Pickleball Crew's facility is off of Adamo Drive. It is several blocks removed from Seventh Avenue, where a shooting the weekend before Halloween killed two people and injured 16 others.

“To be a healthy, vibrant neighborhood, Ybor City needs a greater balance of residences, restaurants, shops and other businesses that add to the unique character of the Latin Quarter,” Shaw said in a statement issued after the shooting. “But in the immediate future, hard conversations must take place that focus on curtailing an environment that fosters violence like Sunday’s shootings.”