The team behind Tualatin’s new downtown pickleball center isn’t just dinking around. Their transformation of a cavernous space near the Lake at the Commons is styled to serve up community connections through America’s fastest-growing sport.
RECS (short for Recreate, Exercise, Compete, Socialize) features four cushioned indoor courts, engineered for year-round action, in the former Community Warehouse Estate Store location, with plans for additional outdoor courts at the space next spring.
For owner Kevin Richards and the two Tualatin businessmen collaborating with him, RECS is about more than the game. The trio’s bigger vision is a multi-purpose community space to draw people to the downtown core and spark further area revitalization.
“It’s engineered for great pickleball, but it’s really about creating a place that feels welcoming—where people want to stay and hang out, not just play and leave,” Richards said. “We want to create a third place for people—a space that’s not home or work, but somewhere in between, where they can belong.”
The facility is the collective brainchild of Richards, long-time Tualatin resident and investor Kasey Flicker, and Cobalt’s Bart Dickson. Flicker, a lifelong athlete, visited Richards’ RECS Clackamas location with Dickson after it opened in 2022 and immediately saw potential for replicating the experience in Tualatin.
“He said, ‘We need this in Tualatin. We have to transform the community, and I see RECS as a perfect way of doing it,” Richards recalled. “That began our exploration of figuring out how to put a club here.”
Dickson, whose office is nearby, had his eye on the building when the previous owner, Community Warehouse, put it on the market after closing the Estate Store housed there.
“I saw the Community Warehouse go up for sale, and I wanted to find a tenant so I could do something with it that would activate Tualatin and make the area more appealing because we need a little bit of a soul in Tualatin,” Dickson said.
His firm, Cobalt, purchased the 11,264-square-foot building for $1.7 million in early 2025, with plans to rent to RECS.
“I’m going to predict that this building is going to be at the heart of (downtown) revitalization,” Flicker said. “I feel RECS brings community to downtown. It’s a place to hang out. It’s a place to recreate, exercise, and you’re minutes, if not seconds away from five restaurants and a beautiful lake.”
It’s engineered for flexible use and designed to be a comfortable hangout, featuring food, drinks, a lounge overlooking the courts, and retail space meant to encourage lingering. The courts are equipped with portable nets for easy conversion to an events space.
“We want to become a staple within the community,” Flicker said. “That’s important to us. (We want to) be a part of the events like the Pumpkin Regatta, be Packbackers, volunteer in the community.”
Richards began dreaming of RECS more than a decade ago. He credits the social nature of pickleball and its wide accessibility as central to its meteoric rise in American recreation.
“We have people in our (Gladstone) club from ages 8 to 92 that are playing,” he said. “It’s a sport that can be played by everyone, but you can’t perfect it.”
Tualatin is Richards’ second in what he envisions as an eventual RECS network throughout the Metro area. He launched in Clackamas in early 2022, opening a larger facility there that houses nine courts. Two more are already in the works.
Like its larger, older sibling, the Southwest Nyberg Street space offers memberships and features clinics, lessons, round robins, black light “glow” pickleball, and special events. Members get priority court bookings, discounted event rates, and access to leagues and tournaments. Non-members can reserve courts, attend open play events, and book private gatherings.
Annual membership information for both locations can be found at wearerecs.com/memberships. RECS has also introduced a 3-month punch card for non-member “Visitors.”
“Membership availability is capped to ensure those members are getting the access to the club that they want,” Richards said.
The club’s grand opening on last November included a ribbon cutting with the City of Tualatin and the Tualatin Chamber of Commerce. This spring, RECS will open two additional outdoor courts with an outdoor hospitality space.
RECS Tualatin is located at 8380 SW Nyberg St. For more information, visit wearerecs.com/Tualatin. To inquire about booking a private event, please visit wearerecs.com/events.
