St. Pete Athletic Paddle & Social Club: Elevating Where to Play
By The Pickleball Weekly Editorial Team • Mar 11, 2026 • 7 min read
St. Petersburg’s “urban country club” brings pickleball, hospitality, and wellness under one roof
IN FLORIDA, THE NEXT wave of pickleball clubs is moving well beyond the standard indoor court model. These new venues are not simply places to play. They are being built as full-day destinations where sport, dining, wellness, and social life are designed to coexist.
One of the clearest examples is St. Pete Athletic Paddle & Social Club, a large-scale, hospitality- driven concept in St. Petersburg’s Warehouse Arts District. Located at 680 28th Street South inside The Factory, St. Pete Athletic positions itself as an “urban country club,” blending racquet sports with restaurant service, coffee, wellness amenities, lounges, and coworking spaces.
The club held a soft opening for members on December 11, 2025, began welcoming the public in mid-December, and celebrated its grand opening weekend from January 9 to January 11, 2026. What has emerged is one of the most ambitious paddle-and-social concepts in Florida.
A New Kind of Club in St. Pete
St. Pete Athletic was founded by local partners Reuben Pressman, Graham D’Amico, Jarrett Sabatini, and Nathan Stonecipher, a group with roots in sport, hospitality, coffee, beer, and community building. According to the club, the idea was born from a desire to create more gathering spaces in St. Petersburg and to offer something broader than a traditional athletic facility. The result is a venue that combines pickleball, padel, and table tennis with a strong food and beverage program and a membership model built around both play and social access.
The scale of the project is significant. Public reporting has described the overall facility at between 45,000 and 50,000 square feet, with 35,000 square feet open during the initial phase and additional courts and spaces planned as part of Phase 2. What is consistent across coverage is the scope of the amenity package and the intention behind it. This was designed to be a place where someone could play in the morning, work during the day, stay for lunch or dinner, and return to the courts or social spaces later in the evening.
Pickleball at the Center
Pickleball sits at the heart of the concept. St. Pete Athletic features 14 indoor professional pickleball courts, along with 2 indoor padel courts and 6 table tennis tables. The pickleball courts use Cushion-X surfaces designed to soften impact while maintaining bounce, and the club has integrated technology into the playing experience with iPads for score tracking, TV displays, and court cameras that allow players to save replays directly to their phones. The facility offers open play, lessons, leagues, tournaments, and events, and it remains open to the public for reservations and day passes even though memberships sold out quickly after launch.
A Hospitality-Driven Model
The broader experience is what sets the club apart. Rose’s Dining & Drinks anchors the food and beverage side of the property, with Chef Adam Beckett leading a menu built around elevated American classics and scratch-made staples. The venue includes three bars, a coffee bar, and multiple dining environments that shift from breakfast and coffee service in the morning to cocktails and dinner later in the day. According to club materials and local reporting, food is not treated as an afterthought. It is central to the identity of the space.
That same attention extends to the member amenities. St. Pete Athletic includes a gym, fitness studio, sauna, cold plunge, private changing rooms with showers, co-ed locker facilities, coworking areas, a conference room, a private call booth, a private garden, and several lounge spaces. There is also a pro shop/store carrying performance brands, equipment, and club merchandise. For members, the more private areas function as both athletic support spaces and social retreat spaces, helping explain why the club refers to itself less as a sports complex and more as a modern club environment.
Membership, Access, and Programming
The club’s public positioning emphasizes community and accessibility. While the membership offering is robust, St. Pete Athletic is not members-only in the traditional sense. Nonmembers can purchase Athletic Day Passes for court access at $25 Monday through Thursday and $40 Friday through Sunday, and they can dine at Rose’s, reserve courts, attend events, and participate in programming. Members, however, receive priority booking, preferred pricing, access to member-only lounges and wellness spaces, and a wider range of benefits tied to all three paddle sports.
Membership itself starts at $250 per month for individuals, with public reporting also noting $450 per month for couples and $600 per month for families. The club offers corporate and bulk membership options as well, aimed at employers, apartment communities, and residential developments. At launch, the club reported that its initial membership allotment had already sold out, with a waitlist open for future capacity increases.
Programming reinforces the idea that this is a social club as much as an athletic one. The calendar includes open play, youth clinics, singles sessions, live ball, yoga, mat pilates, trivia, wellness and recovery sessions, whiskey tastings, oyster and martini pop-ups, and social tournament formats like Pickle Scramble followed by après-style events. The venue is also available for private events, including corporate mixers, dinners, and celebrations. That range of offerings helps explain the club’s appeal to people who may not even come primarily for pickleball. As one founder noted in public remarks, many members joined because of the social club side of the experience.
Built for St. Petersburg
Local identity is another important part of the story. The facility is rooted in St. Petersburg’s arts culture, with work from local artists installed throughout the space, including curated paddle art, murals, and sculpture. The Warehouse Arts District location is not incidental. It helps position the club as part of the neighborhood’s creative and cultural fabric rather than a sealed-off sports facility dropped into an industrial building.
What It Represents
For St. Petersburg, St. Pete Athletic represents more than a new place to play. It reflects a larger shift in how pickleball is being packaged and presented in certain markets. The sport is still accessible, social, and community-driven, but in clubs like this, it is also being framed through design, wellness, food, and lifestyle. The result is a model that looks less like a recreation center and more like a modern hospitality brand built around paddle sports.
In that sense, St. Pete Athletic is not just responding to pickleball’s popularity. It is betting on what the next stage of the sport will look like, and in St. Petersburg, that future appears to include climate-controlled courts, a breakfast sandwich and coffee bar in the morning, cocktails at night, and a full calendar of reasons to stay long after the match is over.
The Pickleball Editorial Team produces in-depth reporting and cover features that examine the sport’s growth, innovation, competition, and culture. With contributors who understand both the strategy of the game and the forces shaping its future, the team is committed to telling the full story of modern pickleball.
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