A view of the pickleball courts under construction at Dunn Stadium in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, June 12, 2025.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
The new pickleball courts being built at Dunn Stadium are set to open in a few weeks.
The 12 courts are projected to be open free to the public on a first-come-first-served basis. According to county parks director Rich Day, it will open sometime later this month or in early July. It will be located on the west end of the facility.
A view of the pickleball courts under construction at Dunn Stadium in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, June 12, 2025.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Day said they’ll be putting in netting and the poles for the netting and will begin painting this week. However, the weather forecast calls for rain much of this week.
“It’s going to be amazing when they get started painting on that. Unfortunately, it will weather permitting,” Day said.
A view of the pickleball courts under construction at Dunn Stadium in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, June 12, 2025.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Day said the facility started going under construction earlier this spring.
Day said they had a tournament lined up for August but was canceled because they were a little behind schedule because of the weather.
“It’s been a process,” he said. “When we pretty much got started, we leveled the ground last year with help from the highway department. Once we got our permit from the city, we started in late April, early May.”
A view of the pickleball courts under construction at Dunn Stadium in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, June 12, 2025.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Day estimated the total budget for the project was around $765,000. Some of the funding was from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which helped mitigate the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to the state and local governments across the nation.
“We were lucky to get some ARPA money from COVID,” Day said. “They wanted to invest in the park, so the commissioners decided it would be great to invest in the parks. We thought that was something the public needed.”
