Ace Pickleball Club to open in East Louisville

A new indoor pickleball court is coming to Louisville.

Ace Pickleball Club has leased a space Jeffersontown Commons at 9503 Taylorsville Road. The concept will be taking up 38,000 square feet with 11 indoor courts in a climate-controlled environment.

Diego Pacheco, chief growth officer for the company, said the Louisville spot is one of the first five Ace Pickleball Club facilities to be delivered. It opened its first location in Roswell, Georgia, just north of Atlanta, where the company is based.

The company heard about an opportunity in Jeffersontown Commons by Brixmor Property Group. New York-based Brixmor is the owner of Jeffersontown Commons, as well as the landlord at the Ace Pickleball Club, location in Georgia.  

“I'm from Louisville originally, so when I saw the opportunity in the market and was hearing all the pickleball buzz, I immediately sent it to our franchise partners who are developing our pickleball clubs in Cleveland [Ohio] and Fort Wayne [Indiana], and they showed interest and they ended up signing this deal,” Pacheco said.  

The concept will be operated by Franchise partners TK Herman and Scott Howard. Howard said in an interview the business partners have a background in technology, with Herman as an owner and Howard as a director of sales for a software development company.

When Herman decided to sell in 2021, the partners contracts said they couldn’t work within the industry for a period of time. That’s when they started looking outside the tech world for other businesses to invest in.

Howard said during his time off, he picked up pickleball, which became addictive right away. He suggested to Herman they look into pickleball franchises, which led them to Ace.

“I kind of noticed just a lot of patterns that I couldn’t ignore,” Howard said. “…The different backgrounds it would bring together that I never would see. I mean, I'm friends with people that I never thought I would ever form friendships with and even probably would never encounter, just because we live in two different worlds other than pickleball.”

The concept allows for pickleball players to participate. Howard said there are clinics for players, starting at the beginner level and increasing with skill level.

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Ace Pickleball Club

There will be siloed skill play, along with social play. He also said there will be glow in the dark pickleball at night.

“That's going to be geared towards the 18- to 24-year-olds,” Howard said. “That's a huge market that people aren't actually aware of. It’s sort of become the new miniature golf.”  

The business partners have 10 franchises in the works, which Howard said will host tournaments that all feed into one another. They are focusing on the Midwest to southern region.

The Louisville location is anticipated to open by the third quarter of next year. Howard said the investment into the renovation of the facility will be a multimillion dollar one.

Howard said the location will likely hire about 15 to 25 full time and part time employees. The owners are looking for local people in the pickleball space to add to the team.

Pacheco is originally from Louisville and has a background in real estate. He said deciding on where to locate depended on finding the right buildings that structurally made sense for pickleball courts.

Ace Pickleball Club has sold more than 60 franchise licenses across the U.S., and Pacheco said those units will be developed in the next three years.

“We're pretty strategic and where we chose to plant our first few flags,” Pacheco said. “By the end of the year 2024, we’ll have the largest physical presence in the indoor pickleball space.”

By the end of 2023, the pickleball concept will have 15 signed leases across the U.S., with the expectation of $200 million invested and about 40 to 50 signed leases by the end of 2024, Pacheco said.

The CEO of Ace Pickleball Club is Jay Diederich. The concept comes from former team members of Sky Zone Trampoline Parks.

“Being part of the team [at Sky Zone], we saw how to work in recreation and franchising, and took that experience to Ace Pickleball Club, which we've been building from the ground up since 2020,” Pacheco said.