Wilmington club seeks padel permit ahead of September opening

The Club at Midtown in Wilmington is seeking a permit for padel courts as it pushes toward a September opening at 4950 Holly Tree Rd. The private club’s latest move places padel inside a racquet-sports plan that already includes pickleball and tennis, with lessons, leagues and events built into the membership pitch.

That matters because the project is still being shaped before members ever walk through the door. The club’s own racquet-sports material folds padel into its marketing alongside tennis and pickleball, which suggests the sport is not being treated as a standalone novelty. It is being packaged as part of the value proposition for a private recreation club that has said it wants to avoid being a “typical country club.”

The permit request also sits on top of a zoning and approvals trail that has been building for more than a year. City leaders approved a special use permit for the Midtown pickleball facility on February 5, 2025, and the City of Wilmington later granted the permit that would allow the project’s transformation to move forward. By May 18, the club was celebrating a ceremonial groundbreaking with Mayor Bill Saffo among the attendees, while construction was already underway.

The timing gives the padel addition extra weight. The club’s website says construction is well underway and the grand opening is scheduled for this September, and one club Instagram post said Wilmington would have the city’s only padel courts. That positions padel less as an afterthought than as part of the club’s identity, especially in a market where developers are using racquet sports to differentiate private amenities from standard tennis-only offerings.

If the permit clears and the September opening holds, Wilmington will get a new private venue where padel sits alongside pickleball and tennis in the same membership-driven model. For Midtown, the question is no longer whether to add another court sport. It is whether padel becomes the feature that defines the club when it finally opens.