6 days ago
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F. racket sport startup expanding at two waterfront locations
Less than two years after opening the Bay Area's first club dedicated to the fast-growing racket sport padel, the San Francisco startup Bay Padel is planning major expansions at both Pier 70 in Dogpatch and Treasure Island.
Bay Padel, which recently opened a club next to the Google campus in Sunnyvale, will add four more padel courts and six pickleball courts outside at Pier 70's Building 12, the historic mixed-use complex that recently saw the opening of a Standard Deviant brewery and an outpost of the Asian American bakery Breadbelly.
At Treasure Island four more pickleball and two more padel courts will be built in the historic Hangar 3, near the entrance to the island. When completed, the Treasure Island club will have eight padel courts and eight pickleball courts.
'Our thesis originally was to create as many clubs as possible in the next five years based on the hypothesis that with padel being the fastest growing sport in the world, it will eventually take off in the U.S.,' said Bay Padel co-founder Lucas Tepman.
So far the thesis has been solid. The Treasure Island and Pier 70 clubs are at 85% capacity at peak hours. The Dogpatch courts are at 70% capacity in non-peak hours and Treasure Island is at 40%, according to Tepman and his partner Matias Gandulfo.
Padel is played on a synthetic grass, glass-enclosed court, where players can hit the ball off the back wall. It is bigger than a pickleball court but smaller than a tennis court. The paddles are solid but perforated and the ball is like a tennis ball, but slightly smaller and softer. The game has the same scoring system as tennis.
The rise of padel over the last two years has been similar to the growth pickleball saw during the first few years of the pandemic. In 2024 there was a 26% increase in new padel clubs opening around the world, with 7,000 new courts built, according to Playtomic, an app that allows padel players to reserve courts and find people to play with. Of the 7,000 new courts built in 2024, 352 were in the United States.
For Pier 70, which is being redeveloped by Brookfield Properties, the Bay Padel expansion caps a flurry of activity at Building 12, a restored football-field-size historic structure that was originally built in 1941 for the World War II shipbuilding effort. In addition to Bay Padel, Standard Deviant and Breadbelly, tenants that have moved in include custom sneaker designer Studio Duskus, paper artist Zai Divecha, metalsmith and maker Emi Grannis, florist Marbled Mint, and motorcycle dealer Scuderia.
In addition, Brookfield recently announced that Elevation XR has signed a five-year lease to put four structures (three geodesic domes and a pyramid) on a site between the bay and Building 12. The domes will feature live music, movies, educational programing like nature documentaries, and wellness-oriented offerings like sound baths and yoga.
While Building 12 is being billed at the centerpiece of the Pier 70 development, the vast majority of the old shipyard redevelopment remains stalled, with Brookfield still struggling to attract capital needed to start on the 2,150 homes and up to 1.75 million square feet of commercial space the master plan calls for. The land that will be occupied by both Elevation XR and the Bay Padel expansion is slated for housing.
Tim Bacon, senior director of development for Brookfield, which is redeveloping Pier 70, said Bay Padel is a good fit for Building 12 because it will bring activity at night and on weekends.
'I was there on Sunday and Breadbelly had a line out the door, the courts were all reserved at Bay Padel, and every seat was taken at Standard Deviant,' Bacon said.
Bacon said the activation of Building 12 will bring other potential tenants and investors out to Pier 70 and eventually help build momentum for the larger project.
'We are creating a mixed-use destination — with a dome park and padel club — that is becoming a place where office tenants will want to be,' he said. 'We are continuing to work with our partners at the port and the city to find creative ways to unlock development opportunities.'
Meanwhile there will be plenty of beer, bread, pickleball and padel at Pier 70. Tepman and Gandulfo said they are hoping to open the new courts in October — or as soon as possible since they said there is a waiting list for people trying to get into the padel clinics.
'We are hiring coaches,' Gandulfo said.
