St. Pete Athletic Was Built Backwards and That’s Why It Worked
By Luke Burton, Director of Marketing, St Pete Athletic
August 19, 2026 • 5 min read
MOST CLUBS OPEN their doors and hope big things follow. St Pete Athletic was built in reverse: first came the dream of bringing Major League Pickleball to St. Petersburg, then came the club to make it happen. Seven months after opening, that bet paid off in front of more than 5,000 fans, as the club hosted the highest-grossing regular-season Major League Pickleball event in league history, and the Florida Smash finally played on a court they could call home.
From Vision to Reality
It started on the public courts at Crescent Lake Park, where Graham D’Amico and former ATP pro Travis Rettenmaier spent countless hours building a vision: a local major league pickleball team that captured the passion of their community. The Florida Smash was born there.
The next step required a real home. Local entrepreneur Reuben Pressman joined the dream, and together they saw what the public courts had taught them: St Pete needed year-round play, top facilities, and space that respected the sport. The two-hour wait times and summer rain delays weren’t sustainable. Neither was the idea that professional pickleball belonged in a warehouse.
The vision was to give pickleball the luxury and craftsmanship that golf clubs command, with court conditions and facilities worthy of Grand Slam tennis, while keeping it accessible to recreational players. Every decision flowed from that principle.
Designed for Championship Play
Coming from a background in tech, Pressman made sure the club was built at the cutting edge. Fiber optic cables ran throughout to support broadcast-grade streaming. All courts are installed with PodPlay technology to enable in-game scoring, replays, and tournament facilitation.
The courts feature CushionX coating to soften the impact on players’ legs during sustained play. Specialized indirect lighting was calibrated to professional playing lumens and tuned to eliminate visual dead spots. All interior fencing and nets were designed to be fully removable for tournament setups.
Hosting MLP requires space most warehouse buildings don’t have. Support columns typically interrupt the floor plan, making it impossible to set up a championship court with the surrounding seating required for professional events. The ownership group invested in a clear-span building instead, a larger upfront cost, but essential for the vision.
The 20,000-square-foot building normally houses six pickleball courts, two padel courts, and a turfed area for events, seating, and dining. For MLP, every fence, net, and piece of turf came out. What remained was an empty slate for the championship court to expand into a 1,000-seat stadium with bleacher seating and a VIP viewing platform.
Beyond the courts, the space includes a full scratch kitchen, pro shop, player lounges with showers and saunas, gym, and recovery center.
The results were immediate. Players and fans alike called it one of their favorite facilities in professional pickleball, and the numbers backed that up. St Pete Athletic became the highest-grossing regular-season stop in MLP history.
A Community’s Dream Realized
Building St Pete Athletic took longer than a typical warehouse conversion. The design demanded attention to detail that added months to the timeline. But the longest part of all wasn’t construction, it was the years spent building community on the courts at Crescent Lake, earning the belief of locals who would eventually make the dream real.
Without them, there is no Florida Smash. There is no St Pete Athletic. There is no highest-grossing MLP event in league history. The vision started on those public courts. It came home here. ●
About St. Pete Athletic
St. Pete Athletic is a premier indoor paddle and social club located at 680 28th Street South in the Warehouse Arts District of St. Petersburg, Florida. Open daily from 5 AM to midnight, the 20,000+ square-foot facility features 14 indoor pickleball courts, two glass-and-turf padel courts, and six pro table tennis setups, alongside a full restaurant, cocktail bars, and wellness amenities. The club is open to the public and offers a dynamic range of programming and entertainment for all ages and levels of play, from social events and tournaments to coaching, leagues, and more.
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