RIVER VALE—America’s fastest growing paddle sport, pickleball, will soon be coming to the township’s Mark Lane Athletic Complex thanks to dozens of resident requests and a recent $77,340 Bergen County Open Space Trust Fund grant awarded to the township in December.
Township Business Administrator Gennaro Rotella said the township’s engineer, Chris Statile, was putting together bid specifications for four pickleball courts on a grassy area located near the Mark Lane Athletic Complex’s basketball courts. The new courts will be off of Piermont Avenue, opposite the under-construction 249-unit Fairways at Edgewood townhome development.
Pickleball, invented in 1965 by two men in Washington State, combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong on a 20-foot-wide by 44-foot-long court. The court size matches a badminton court dimensions.
Pickleball players use paddles made of wood, plastic or composite material to hit a Wiffle ball-sized plastic ball across a net. Games can be played by two players or four players.
Many Bergen County towns offer pickleball courts, some drawing new lines on existing tennis courts and others with standalone pickleball courts.
Today, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, nearly 5 million U.S. citizens play pickleball recreationally, which has doubled in the last five years.
Rotella said because pickleball can be a noisy sport, with the ping-ping-ping of plastic balls against paddles, the township plans to add noise barriers “to try to reduce the noise.” He said that pickleballers will only have access to courts during specific hours for “quality of life” of nearby residents.
He said the Mark Lane Athletic Complex already offers basketball, baseball, softball and a multi-functional recreational field, a kids’ playground and a snack hut. He said the park may be noisy during normal operation as it is a park where recreational activities and public use occurs.
He said future plans include a fence and gate with access card, with access free to residents and a small charge for out-of-town players.
He said he hoped to use funds from capital reserve as a match for the county Open Space grant, even though the township has a local Open Space Trust Fund.
Rotella said other priorities were in line for those funds, noting the local trust fund accrues about $200,000 annually from a small tax on property owners.
“The Mayor and Council acknowledge that the grant will be disbursed to the municipality as a reimbursement upon submittal of certified Trust Fund payment and project completion documents and municipal vouchers, invoices, proofs of payment, and other such documents as may be required by the County,” states the council resolution for the $77,340 county grant.
The township was one of six Pascack Valley towns receiving a total of nearly $500,000 in Open Space matching grants late last year.
Of Bergen County’s 70 towns, 57 received a total of early $19 million in Open Space matching grants. (See “Six Towns Share in Open Space Grants,” Jan. 10, 2022, Pascack Press.)
The grants require the towns to put in 50% of the grant project’s final cost. River Vale was the only Pascack Valley town constructing pickleball courts, although a few other towns also won grants for new pickleball facilities.
In Pascack Valley, Park Ridge was awarded $92,500 to acquire 1.366 acres for open space; Emerson received $77,340 for Benkovic field lighting and cameras to broadcast sports events; Hillsdale received $56,250 for Beechwood Park improvements; Montvale received $77,340 for Huff Park playground improvements; and Woodcliff Lake received $110,157 for design, a gazebo, and lighting for a new Galaxy Gardens Passive Park.
The new park is planned on an empty lot at the Wearimus Road-Woodcliff Avenue nexus. The borough hired a landscape architect to design the park at its Feb. 16 council meeting.