Will Davis said it was January 2023 – at the start of Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg’s tenure – when a group of tennis and pickleball aficionados approached the new mayor’s chief of staff about potentially building an athletic complex at Joe Creason Park.
Davis, chief executive of the group that’s now called the Kentucky Tennis & Pickleball Center, said discussions with the mayor’s “whole team” followed.
The mayor went on to publicly support the project, but Davis said city officials advised the group to keep the plans quiet until this spring.
When the plans were ultimately unveiled to build the tennis and pickleball complex on 25 acres of city-owned land and use a $20 million municipal bond to help fund it, public opposition came swift and strong.
Scores of residents and park neighbors bemoaned the potential environmental impact, the perception of backroom dealing and the use of public funds to prop up a project closely linked to the private Bellarmine University.
They put signs in their yards, made green T-shirts, sent emails to city officials and turned out in force for the first community meeting about the project, held Tuesday evening.
Three days later, Greenberg called a press conference at the park and said the wave of local opposition changed his stance on the project. He announced the facility will not be built at the park that borders the Louisville Nature Center and city zoo.
“This is why we have community engagement, and I want to thank everyone here today and everyone who has made their voice heard,” he said.
“When it was first proposed to us, I thought this was a good idea because of the history of tennis at this facility, and … the current condition of this part of the park. But clearly there were loud voices, with lots of reasons for why this was not the right location. And so it's time to take that input and move on and find a better location,” he said.
Greenberg said he decided to drop the proposal after residents flooded an informational meeting Tuesday to protest it.
He said he couldn’t “remember the exact date” when he first learned about the project, but “there was a lot of work to do to even get to a phase where I thought putting a proposal out there for feedback was even appropriate.”
“I always viewed this as the beginning of the process,” he said of the proposal’s recent announcement and the ensuing public feedback. “I think that's one of the disconnects out there. I understand why it didn't feel that way.”
He said he learned a lot from this and “we will move forward on other community projects with earlier community engagement.”
Greenberg also said the nonprofit behind the now-defunct Joe Creason Park project “is interested in looking at other, more suitable locations across our city.”
“Louisville needs to have more world-class athletic facilities to create even more reasons for people to visit our city,” he said. “We need to keep considering big ideas, and we need to continue our historic investments in our amazing park system.”
Davis, the Kentucky Tennis & Pickleball Center’s CEO, confirmed they’ll look at other sites for their project.
“We want to, you know, move forward with the mayor and trust his genuine word of trying to do something with us in the future somewhere else,” he said.
People who’d come to watch Greenberg’s Friday press conference celebrated the decision.
Amanda Capps was there with her daughter, Autumn. She got a little teary talking about the success of local residents’ organized opposition to the development.
“Because I'm a homeschooler, my daughter has been engaged since the beginning, and I just wanted to show her that activism works,” she said. “And this is really emotional, because she's seeing it in action. So it's awesome.”
Capps said she’s happy the mayor responded to their input, but she’s also vigilant for similar proposals that may arise elsewhere.
“This is about green spaces for all of Louisville. And I'm aware that we are able to engage and actively meet because we have a lot of privilege, and not everybody in the city has the ability to organize and engage as quickly as we can,” she said. “And I want them to know that if it does come to another park, we're showing up for them, too. Because all of our parks belong to all of us.”
Her daughter, Autumn, told KyCIR why this particular slice of Louisville matters to her.
“It's where I practice my soccer at. And … on the weekends, my family and I just go out to one of the clear fields and just play football and stuff,” she said. “And that's a very important part of my life.”
Rebecca Minnick, executive director of the Louisville Nature Center that sits next to the park, called this “a big win for nature,” and noted that victories like this don’t come often.
Emily Sprawls, who lives just behind the park, said she was expecting a longer fight for the future of the park.
“And we were ready for it,” she said.
Sprawls pushed back on comments she has seen that suggest opposition to the tennis complex was a case of NIMBYism, meaning “Not in my backyard.”
She looked around the field where she stood, dotted with short, young trees.
“This part of the park is beautiful,” she said. “I'm getting emotional because, you know, people go to Cherokee Park because of the trees and the beauty. Like, we will have our own version of Cherokee Park right here. Just give it 10 years, 20 years. My children will have that in our neighborhood. I'm just beyond thrilled.”
