Cole Willis knows a good thing when he sees it.

Over the past few years, the general manager of CBRC Health & Fitness in Richland has witnessed a meteoric rise in pickleball participation.

Willis said it seems that everyone is playing Washington state’s official sport, including himself.

“I can’t get enough of it,” he said. “Pickleball is the new morning coffee at McDonald’s.”

Willis knew the club needed to make room for more courts at CBRC.

The club recently turned two outdoor clay tennis courts – first built in 1996 – into six hard surface pickleball/tennis courts.

“There are no longer clay courts outside. We finished that in October. Now, we have to finish the patio and social area,” he said. “We just submitted the building plan to the city.”

CBRC plans to use the lawn space near the courts for health classes, running wind sprints, social gatherings for the pickleball and tennis events, cornhole tournaments, concerts, barbecues and gatherings for its corporate partners.

The patio plans include a fireplace, permanent shade, “and we want to plumb it so we can host a food truck – hopefully rotating food trucks.”

The goal is to have the project completed before May 1.

Tennis roots

CBRC opened in 1981 as a tennis club, with six tennis courts, eight racquetball courts and a lounge.

But over the years, ownership and management worked to meet the changing needs of their clientele. Swimming pools, an outdoor aquatics center, weight rooms, fitness classes and a children’s area are among the offerings that have been added over the years to the 125,000-square-foot facility in north Richland.

Tennis, Willis said, remains vital and important to the club, especially its Junior Development Tennis Program. The club has five indoor tennis courts.

The club had six indoor pickleball courts, but Willis knew more were necessary.

So he started eyeing the outdoor clay courts. “They just didn’t get any use,” he said.

Staffing for pickleball

Willis also started looking for someone to run CBRC’s pickleball program.

“We knew we weren’t going to grow the program to any level of success if we didn’t do something,” he said. “So the first thing we did was commit to the program.”

He had his eye on hiring Paul Jones, who moved to the Tri-Cities from Yakima in 2010 for work. That’s also when Jones discovered pickleball playing with friends, and he got hooked.

Jones is a founder of Club 509 Pickleball, the local Tri-Cities organization established in 2018. Jones also worked with the city of Kennewick to expand the pickleball courts at Kennewick’s Lawrence Scott Park.

“We started to build the program, but we had somebody running it part time. We needed a full-time person, and we had to dive in. So we hired Paul,” Willis said. “We committed to Paul and committed to the space, and we had this premier space that wasn’t being used.”

Jones joined CBRC last June as pickleball director.

“Pickleball is so accessible,” Jones said. “Tennis, if you’re a good athlete, it could take you six months to be competitive. An average athlete, at least a year. In tennis, you’ve got to be able to put in the time.”

That’s not the case with pickleball.

“It’s so easy to learn. Everyone can play it,” Jones said.

And then there is the social aspect of pickleball. People meet up, sometimes daily, just to play for a bit.

“As we age, people get more isolated,” Jones said. “Pickleball is more of a social sport.”

CBRC currently has five pickleball leagues, which run for about eight weeks at a time.

Jones has three other pickleball staffers on his team who give lessons and help with the junior pickleball program for kids up to 14.

Jones is helping to organize tournaments at CBRC, the latest one with about 253 competitors from as far away as Houston, Texas.

The first outdoor tournament will be Aug. 1.

But more importantly for CBRC, members are responding positively.

“We have a couple hundred club members right now playing pickleball here,” Willis said. “A year ago, it was easily just half that. The courts on the weekend are fully booked. Club members used to be able to show up and get on a court.”

Not anymore.

For Willis, the move makes good business sense.

“The (clay tennis) courts just didn’t get used,” he said. “So I could have eight tennis players on those courts. Or we could have upwards of 24 pickleball players out there, with some players waiting to get on.”

They’ll bring the morning coffee to the courts.