U.S. relations with Canada might be a little volatile right now, but padel fans in Washington could still be tempted to venture across the border by the opening of the astounding Belvedere Club in Richmond, British Colombia.
The incredible 100,000 sq ft facility south-west of Vancouver boasts the city’s first ever indoor padel courts, which form just part of the vast and opulent multi-sport facility which opened in January.
Funded by investment firm Nexus (who own the real estate the club sits on), the $110m facility was originally meant to be an ice rink for ice hockey and figure skating, but the Canadian governing body, Skate Canada, withdrew from the project during the pandemic.
It then pivoted into a multi-sport centre with a giant hall featuring eight indoor pickleball courts with private mezzanine viewing booths and a jumbo screen (and more pickleball courts outdoors), plus a separate giant spotlit hall with two padel courts next to three all-glass squash courts (two singles and one doubles), a 4G tennis court, basketball court and futsal pitch.
Elsewhere in the club, there is a cafe, cinema, 300-capacity creche and much more. Once open, it will be the largest indoor pickleball facility in Canada and will become the centre of Vancouver’s padel community.
The club’s operations manager is Faris Al-Mudaffer, an Iraqi who lived in the UK as a child and studied at Swansea University in Wales. He went on to become a certified coach in tennis, squash, pickleball, football and futsal. He later specialised in sports management in Dubai, before moving to Canada in 2018, having suffered a stroke a few years previously.
“I lived in Dubai for 15 years and the Belvedere Club is is the closest thing I’ve seen to a grandiose Dubai-style project,” says Al-Mudaffer as he proudly showed your author the Belvedere Club’s amenities via Zoom call.
“I first played padel at Emirates Golf Club in Dubai in 2018. I was on the driving range and noticed it, gave it a try and it was instant addiction. I believe those were the first two courts in the Middle East. Its explosion in the region since then has been amazing.
“I’m of the belief that padel will overtake pickleball [in North America]. Padel is very much a novice sport here in Canada. This is the first indoor facility in Vancouver but I’ve got a padel community ready and desperate to play. I’m very interested to see the conversion rate between padel and pickleball once the club is fully open.”
The Belvedere Club was originally intended to be members-only, but owners have softened that policy to a hybrid model of membership and pay-and-play options, with members given added value including booking discounts and access to certain areas including the Gold Lounge booths above the pickleball courts.
Their hybrid model also has a unique twist. Memberships are only available for a single sport up to specified limits (pickleball will be initially limited to 400 and padel to 100 members). Each member is entitled to eight hours of playing time per week in their selected sport.
If a padel member wants to play squash, for example, they can swap their hours with a squash member. “We’re going to have a swap board,” explains Al-Mudaffer. “This will be a new philosophy in club membership, but we believe it will have a future in multi-sports clubs like ours.”
As I chat to Faris online, the lights in the main pickleball hall are lowered and the court lines immediately light up dazzlingly. It showcases one of the many added extras the Belvedere Club will offer – glow-in-the-dark pickleball and padel. “The group [Nexus] like to do unique things,” explains Al-Mudaffer. “We didn’t want to be like any other club.”
