Pickleball and padel facility planned for Hopkinton
Image | Courtesy of Town of Hopkinton
Plans for the Open Play Pickleball and Padel Club in Hopkinton call for the eventual construction of a number of indoor and outdoor courts.
A business looking to cash in on two up-and-coming racquet sports is coming to Hopkinton, as the owner of a planned pickleball and padel facility in Hopkinton has purchased the future site of the facility for $900,000.
Open Play Pickleball and Padel Club in Hopkinton is one step closer to opening, after a corporation affiliated with the company purchased a parcel of land at 124 East Main St. in a deal completed on Wednesday, according to South Middlesex Registry of Deeds records.
Open Play received approval for a special permit for the facility in February, according to Town of Hopkinton records. The first phase of the planned pickleball facility will contain eight courts for pickleball and two courts for padel. Padel is a racquet sport originating in Mexico in the 1960s, which shares similarities with tennis and pickleball and has seen growth in Europe and the Middle East in recent years, according to the company’s website.
Usually played with four people, two on each team, padel is played on an enclosed court with stringless paddles and a ball that is slightly softer than a tennis ball. The ball can be played off the walls surrounding the court, similar to squash.
Open Play is owned by Yev Galpe, a Wayland resident who retired from a 25-year career in software to pursue opening the facility, according to his LinkedIn page.
The approved plans allow for the construction of additional outdoor courts; the company says the total number of eventual outdoor courts will be based on the demand for each particular sport.
The planned site was purchased from Legacy Farms, an entity owned by Baystone Development in Weston. That company was involved in the construction of a large mixed-use development in town, a long-running project that was the largest housing development in Hopkinton’s history.
The purchased property was given a tax assessment value of $559,700 in 2024, according to Town of Hopkinton property records.
Open Play is aiming to open in early 2025. When completed, it will join pickleball facilities in West Boylston and Sturbridge as Central Massachusetts facilities that have opened since 2024. A pickleball facility planned for the former Neiman Marcus space in the Natick Mall is planning to open later this year.
Pickleball is the most rapidly growing in the country, according to the Illinois-based Association of Pickleball Players, with more than 48 million Americans playing at least one game between March 2022 and 2023.
Eric Casey is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.
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