The Pickleball Club at Lakewood Ranch reopens under new leadership

Upon moving to the area In December, Matt Lund thought he had landed the perfect job.

Lund, who had finished a 16-year career with the YMCA in Wisconsin, had been hired to work at The Pickleball Club at Lakewood Ranch.

But two weeks after starting, The Pickleball Club closed.

“All of a sudden, boom, nothing's there," Lund said. "No more paycheck, no more job. I was like, ‘I think there's a bigger plan going here, and we just need to be patient and see what happens.’”

He only needed to be patient for six months.

The Pickleball Club at Lakewood Ranch has reopened under new owner Scott Hermann, who hired Lund to be his CEO.

Hermann was impressed with Lund's business experience and thought he was a good fit.

“Scott (Hermann) has been fantastic and he's put as much trust in me as I put in him that we're going to work together and do this right,” Lund said.

Lund now lives in Lakewood Ranch with his wife Stephanie and their four children, Adalynn (15), Christian (14), Payton (11), and McKaelynn (10). Since the pandemic, they have embraced pickleball as a family. It made Lund's current position seem perfect.

Lund and Hermann connected in March and struck a deal. They began with a soft opening June 1.

“We put in about probably three to six months of work within three weeks,” Lund said. “It was a lot of work, a lot of time, but it was something that we wanted to do, and so we made it happen. Now here we are and we're halfway to our goal for our membership to be functioning at a sustainable model.” 

Photo by Madison Bierl

Lund said they will rely heavily on memberships in order to function as a successful business. He said all the details of membership are available on the website at PickleballClubLWR.com.

"We wanted to be fully transparent about what is included," he said.

The memberships range from $80-$525 per month plus a one-time initiation fee.

“It comes down to customer service — giving adequate space, and understanding that you're dealing with multiple types of individuals who have different needs,” Lund said. “A lot of them come here for exercise, some come here for camaraderie, for food, for the Wellness Center. I think overall, they're coming here for socialization.”

Since th June 1 opening, they have sold 200 memberships. Their goal is to have 450 members.

Lund said there is a good mix of former members returning and new ones coming for the first time.

Besides marketing and word of mouth, Lund said his family has been talking to everyone in the community they meet. 

He said the previous owner, Brian McCarthy, might have "outpriced" the business to the community. He also said building costs might have doomed the project.

Lund said the building, which was more than $11 million to build, should have been $8-9 milion.

In its first run, Lund said The Pickleball Club changed its operations too many times, which was hard on the clientele.

“It was just charge, charge, charge, charge,” Lund said. “By the time you're done as a member, you're going, what benefits do I have beyond the fact that I'm paying a lot of money for it? I think a lot of it was because they felt they were paying a lot of money to walk into a beautiful building that doesn't serve them, so we tried to adjust that a little bit.” 

Although Manatee County is building a pickleball complex at Premier Sports Campus North, and many other public and private pickleball courts are being constructed in the region, Lund said the advantage to The Pickleball Club is all of the additional amenities as well as the climate-controlled building. 

“You’re not having to deal with wind, the humidity, the heat and the rain,” Lund said. 

Lund said it's a step up from the courts being built at Premier.

“They have several covered courts, steel frame structure, but they have no sides," he said. "You're still affected by the weather, it just kind of keeps the sun and rain off of you,” Lund said. “I'm actually looking forward to that outdoor one myself, because it sounds like it's going to be a beautiful complex between the pickleball courts and the aquatic center.”

The Pickleball Club at Lakewood Ranch currently has three full time staff members, and five part-time workers. Lund said they all wear many hats. Plans for the future include more staff members when the memberships build up.

“As we continue to build on what we're doing here, the community is going to benefit," he said. "We have a heavy focus on not just the pickleball community, but the senior community, the youth community, the development of a healthy lifestyle and that social responsibility aspect,” Lund said.