Plans have been unveiled for a £4m purpose-built padel venue in Nottingham with 11 courts, plus pickleball, wellness and coworking facilities and a range of eateries and bars.
Carlton-based ALB Group, which recently worked on Nottingham’s Bridlesmith Gate, has submitted a planning application for the 30,000 sqft venue to be called Swing, on Electric Avenue, next to its Riverleen House residential project.
If approved, work is expected to begin immediately, with the centre opening within just seven months of construction starting.
The project will feature eight indoor and three outdoor covered padel courts, a show court with arena-style seating, plus wellness and leisure facilities including a sauna, physiotherapy, sports massage rooms and a reformer pilates studio.
It will also boast coworking spaces, an outdoor events area, a pickleball court, and a range of eateries and bars, all concepts being brought to life by the creative force behind Public and Peter’s Pizza.
A spokesperson for Public said: “This centre will be more than just first-class courts. We’re building a community founded on connection, conversation and energy. Yes, we want people to come and play, but also to stay to share a drink, work, network and make new connections.”
“We’ve got some crazy plans…”
Arran Bailey, managing director at ALB Group, said: “We want to create the biggest and best padel court centre in the UK. I’ve been playing for two years now, and it’s changed my life. After visiting courts in New York, Miami and Dubai, I wanted to bring the best bits of all of them back home to Nottingham.
“We’ve got some crazy plans for this site and amazing food offerings, but at the heart of it all is community.”
The purpose-built centre was designed by Nottingham-based Leonard Design Architects.
Director John Morgan said the team had drawn on international case studies to develop what they hope will be “the best padel centre in Europe.”
He added: “In Spain, padel is second only to football and is seen as a multi-generational social activity. That’s the model we’ve followed to create a space for playing, socialising, working and dining all in one.”
Englishman Martin Sweeney, President of United States Padel Association in 2023 and 2024, said: “I have been fortunate in being part of the incredible padel growth in many parts of the world including the opening of the first padel courts in the Middle East at the prestigious Emirates Golf Club and opening of the first padel club in the USA. Nottingham is my adopted home city so I am excited to see the introduction of this fantastic facility.
“The investment and vision to construct such a venue will put Nottingham on the UK padel map and I look forward to making new padel friends and enjoying the camaraderie that this wonderful sport brings.
Arran added: “This project is absolutely huge in terms of both scale and ambition. To create something like this in my hometown is simply amazing. This is a building that’s been designed purely for padel, so there are no compromises with it. We aren’t trying to make padel courts fit into a building, we are building a padel club from the ground up.”
Pure Padel opened a padel centre in Nottingham last year, Advantage Padel opened a six-court facility there last August and The Padel Paper recently reported on another upcoming opening in the city backed by former England cricketer James Taylor.
