Columbus, Georgia's pickleball bet: how a $1.6M facility became an $8.4M project

The price of Columbus, Georgia's downtown pickleball facility has quintupled on paper, and the city council is still saying yes. On October 13 the Columbus Council approved another 1.7 million dollars for the planned complex on Third Avenue, pushing the taxpayer commitment to 8.4 million dollars against an early estimate of about 1.6 million, and leaving some residents openly frustrated about the city's priorities.

How $1.6 million became $8.4 million

The timeline, as laid out by Columbus Director of Inspections and Code Ryan Pruett, is a familiar infrastructure story. The city's initial funding figure was set before the site was designed and engineered. Once the contracted design firm, Brasfield and Gorrie, ran competitive bidding with subcontractors, the compiled pricing came in over budget, too far over to trim back to the approved number without significant scope cuts, Pruett told the council.

Lance Tankersley, president of the Columbus Pickleball Association, the nonprofit that drove the project, gave the Ledger-Enquirer the engineering explanation: once the site was engineered, the soil required post-tension courts, the stormwater system had to be fully designed, and construction costs had risen since the early estimate. "Any contractor would have faced the same conditions," he wrote.

The funding stack behind the 8.4 million is layered: about 4 million in general fund reserves, 2.6 million in tax allocation district funding, and roughly 450,000 in sales-tax infrastructure money, per Pruett's accounting to the council, more than 7 million approved before the latest 1.7 million top-up from general fund reserves.

What the city is actually building

The project began with the Columbus Pickleball Association, which spent six years assembling it. The association bought the 1.98-acre property at 1641 Third Avenue, a four-story warehouse site, intending to donate it for the city's first dedicated pickleball facility; Pruett told the council the acquisition price was 950,000 dollars. The association's original concept was 28 courts: 24 main courts plus four more under the Second Avenue bridge, contingent on Georgia Department of Transportation approval.

The layout developed with the contractor this year scaled that back to 21 courts, with an option to add the four bridge courts later for another 700,000 dollars, while upgrading amenities: more social space, a storage and maintenance building, and expanded staff and operational areas. The phased approach lets the city test whether 21 courts meet demand before committing the extra taxpayer money, and leaves room for private partners to fund the expansion.

The reserve-days question deserves a beat of its own, because it is where the abstract budget fight gets concrete. Drawing 1.7 million dollars from general fund reserves is not free money; it is the cushion the city keeps for emergencies and credit ratings, and councilors asked staff on the record how many days of reserves the increase would consume. The council approved the draw anyway, which is the clearest signal yet that Columbus' political leadership now treats the facility as a done commitment rather than an experiment.

The payback argument

City officials are framing the facility as an investment, not a cost. Officials told WTVM they believe the additional funds will be paid back in full as the facility generates money for the city, with the complex designed to attract tournaments and draw visitors from outside Columbus. That is the standard sports-tourism case for municipal pickleball complexes, and it has worked in some mid-size Southern markets, though the payback periods are usually measured in years, not months.

Tankersley was blunt about why private money could not close the gap: donors want to see the facility they were promised before giving again. "Together we've taken this project as far as private capital funding can go for now," he told the council.

The other side of the ledger

The October 13 vote was not unanimous in spirit. Residents at the meeting expressed frustration about the city's priorities, a reaction that tracks with how these projects tend to land: pickleball's player base is passionate but still a minority, and 8.4 million dollars of layered public funding is a visible number in a city with competing needs. Council members raised questions even while voicing support, per WTVM's account, and the discussion included how many days of financial reserves the increase would consume.

The national pattern

Columbus is an extreme case of a common arc: a volunteer association proves demand, donates land or sweat equity, and City Hall scales the project into something the private group could never build alone. The friction point is always the same, too: an early number set before engineering meets a construction market that has repriced everything from concrete to labor. Cities watching Columbus should note the sequence, not just the total: concept first, donation second, engineering third, real budget fourth. The early number is never the real number.

What to watch

Two decisions remain## What to watch

Two decisions remain. First, whether the council exercises the 700,000-dollar option for the four courts under the Second Avenue bridge, which depends both on GDOT's tentative approval becoming final and on the political appetite for more spending. Second, whether the tournament calendar that underpins the payback case materializes once the 21 courts open. Columbus is making the largest municipal pickleball bet in Georgia; the state, and plenty of other mid-size cities weighing similar projects, will be reading the results.

Sources

• Columbus Ledger-Enquirer - How Columbus' investment in pickleball facility swelled from $1.6 million to $8.4 million
• WTVM - Columbus pickleball facility gets additional $1.7 million from city council

Sources checked 20 Oct 2026. Header image is illustrative, not a photo of the events described.