Fort Lauderdale’s beach basketball faithful just chalked up a win. After months of pushback from players and residents, city officials scrapped a plan to swap the longtime sandside hoops for pickleball, opting instead to keep the court right where it is and give the area a makeover.
The result: the city’s iconic beach court survives, and pickleball still gets a spot nearby. City leaders are now selling it as a middle-ground deal that protects a beloved local hangout while layering in new amenities.
City Reverses Course And Keeps The Court
Commissioner Steven Glassman said the city will leave the basketball court in its current location and upgrade it with new exercise equipment and fresh landscaping, while adding four pickleball courts just south of the existing court on the sand, according to CBS News Miami.
The redesign is part of the roughly $3 billion Bahia Mar redevelopment, and the updated plans still need approvals from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, CBS News Miami reported.
Commissioner: ‘We Regrouped’
“We regrouped, we heard the folks loud and clear that wanted to retain the basketball where it was,” Glassman told CBS News Miami, calling the new plan a response to the public outcry.
He added that he expects the proposal to return for a final vote at one of the next commission meetings in the coming weeks, setting up one more key moment before anything gets built on the sand.
How The Fight Started
The showdown over the sandside hoops started quietly, with a small sign that read “Coming Soon: Basketball court conversion to pickleball” popping up at the courts. That modest notice quickly set off petitions and protests, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Under the original interlocal agreement tied to the Bahia Mar deal, the city had agreed to convert the site from basketball to pickleball as part of broader park upgrades funded in part by the development district, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
What Players Say
Local organizers who call themselves the Fort Lauderdale Beach Ballers argued that the courts are more than just a place to shoot around. They describe the spot as a multicultural community hub, a place where tourists, locals and regulars mix on and off the court.
WLRN reported that the group quickly built a social media following and gathered thousands of petition signatures to keep the hoops in place, turning a low-key sign into a local cause.
Next Steps
City officials say the engineering and design work still has to clear state permitting and the final sign-offs that govern construction on the beach, and a commission vote will lock in the revised plan.
If the original timetable in the Bahia Mar redevelopment agreement holds, certain related improvements were supposed to be finished by January 2027, according to reporting by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Players are calling the latest move a partial victory, saying they will keep an eye on City Hall to make sure the promised upgrades arrive as planned. City staff and the Bahia Mar developer now have to hammer out design details before the next commission meeting, while the beach ballers watch from just beyond the baseline.
