A visiting site selector offered rare praise to a local economic development team Thursday after the community completed an entire project presentation without mentioning pickleball.
“I kept waiting for it,” the consultant said. “The workforce slide came and went. Then quality of life. Then the community assets section. At one point, they showed a photograph of a park, and I thought, ‘Well, here we go.’ But they stayed disciplined.”
The presentation instead focused on available industrial property, infrastructure capacity, permitting timelines, workforce availability, utility costs and the community’s ability to meet the company’s operating requirements.
According to people in the room, the site selector appeared visibly relieved when the final slide ended without a rendering of proposed pickleball courts, statistics about the sport’s national growth or a statement describing the community as “the next pickleball capital of the Southeast.”
“We had the information ready,” admitted one member of the local delegation. “We have 12 courts, four more planned and a regional tournament coming next spring. But we decided to lead with the substation.”
The restraint did not come easily.
Several members of the community’s presentation team reportedly spent weeks debating whether pickleball should be included under workforce recruitment, executive lifestyle, downtown revitalization, talent retention or all four.
One draft of the presentation included a slide titled Live, Work, Play and Dink, but it was removed after consultants warned that the company was primarily concerned about wastewater capacity.
“We are trying to become more strategic,” Brian McFadden, the economic development director, said. “In the past, we may have introduced pickleball too early in the process. Now we wait until the company has narrowed the search to three states.”
The site selector later confirmed that recreational amenities can matter, particularly when companies are comparing similar locations and considering long-term talent attraction. However, he clarified that no known manufacturing project has ever selected a site because the local recreation department recently painted lines on an abandoned tennis court.
“That does not mean pickleball has no value,” he said. “It just means I probably need to know whether the site has natural gas first.”
Local officials described the meeting as an important milestone in the community’s economic development maturity.
“We demonstrated that we can listen to the needs of a project and tailor our presentation accordingly,” the mayor said. “Of course, had they stayed another 15 minutes, we would have driven them by the courts.”
The economic development team is now updating its presentation strategy for future projects. Officials say pickleball information will remain available in the appendix, along with golf courses, farmers markets, splash pads, dog parks and the community’s proximity to an airport that does not currently offer commercial service.
The visiting consultant said the community’s disciplined approach would be remembered.
“They answered the questions we actually asked,” he said. “Honestly, that puts them ahead of about half the field.”
At press time, the community was preparing a follow-up email featuring utility maps, workforce data and a link to a three-minute drone video of the municipal pickleball complex.
