The City of Vacaville still prices pickleball drop-in at the Georgie Duke Sports Center at $7 a person. Directly under that price, the center's page says "Currently unavailable." Badminton drop-in at the same building costs the same $7 and runs six days a week.
Around the same time the city's indoor pickleball paused, a 35,000-square-foot court facility opened on Vaca Valley Parkway. The Club @ Vacaville held its grand opening and ribbon cutting on Saturday, September 5, at 3777 Vaca Valley Parkway, Suite D.
Put those two facts together and you get the situation local players are in this October. If you play badminton, you now have a cheap public option and a full-time private one. If you want indoor pickleball once the evenings get shorter, you'll mostly be playing in one building.
The building that was too short for trucks
The Club's space has an unusual history for a sports venue. Hoodline reported in August that the Suite D space had been considered functionally obsolete for modern distribution because its loading docks were too low. The Club at Vacaville, LLC signed its lease on July 30, 2025, and the lease took effect August 1. A year later, the building has courts where pallets would have gone.
The Reporter visited for a story published September 24. General manager Brett Stephens described the club as "the first indoor badminton facility in Solano County, as well as the county's largest pickleball facility." He presented the location as a stopping point between two longer drives: "You don't have to drive 40 minutes or an hour and a half to just play one or two games." The Reporter said Solano County badminton players had previously traveled to Emeryville or Sacramento.
Here's what is inside, according to The Club's own site and the Reporter:
- Badminton: six courts
- Pickleball: eight indoor courts available now, with six outdoor courts listed as "coming soon"
- Tech: video recording and AI-assisted review on select pickleball courts, plus a pickleball simulator that Stephens called "one of the only simulators for pickleball on the West Coast"
- Coaching: Stephens is a PCI-certified pickleball instructor and one of five coaches on staff
Published counts don't all agree. The Reporter describes 14 indoor and outdoor pickleball courts in total. The Club's homepage separates that into eight indoor courts open now and six outdoor courts still coming. Hoodline's August story listed five badminton courts. The Club's site and the Reporter both say six. If you're planning around outdoor play there, call ahead.
What the hours mean after sunset
As October goes on, the hours matter more than the court counts. The Club is open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends, and it offers a 24/7 VIP access option. Its site advertises open play every day with drop-ins accepted.
Georgie Duke's badminton schedule is built mostly around daytime. Here are the drop-in hours posted on the city's page:
- Monday, Wednesday and Friday: 8 a.m. to noon
- Tuesday: 5 to 9 p.m.
- Saturday and Sunday: 12:30 to 4:30 p.m.
That leaves Tuesday as the only weeknight evening for public badminton at Duke. If you work standard hours, the city covers one weeknight, and The Club covers the other weeknights at a higher price. The city's linked calendar is titled for September 2026, and the page warns that the schedule is subject to change at any time. The page also offers a monthly e-blast with each new drop-in calendar, which is the most reliable way to catch October changes. You can call the Duke Center at 707-449-5192.
Putting the prices side by side
The cost difference is clear. Duke charges $7 per person for badminton drop-in and sells $100 discount gym punch passes at the front counter. The Club's day pass is $15 on weekdays and $20 on weekends.
The Club's memberships run like this:
| Membership | Monthly price |
|---|---|
| Pickleball only | $129 |
| Badminton only | $129 |
| Combined pickleball and badminton | $179 |
| Junior sport | $99 |
| Couple, combined | $229 |
If you play badminton during the day, Duke's $7 rate is hard to beat. If you play evenings or weekends, the math changes. At weekday rates, a single-sport membership costs about the same as nine day passes, so it pays off once you play more than about twice a week. For indoor pickleball, the comparison with Duke doesn't exist right now, because the city's session isn't running.
The outdoor courts, park by park
Outdoor pickleball in Vacaville is spread across city parks, and the official listings vary in how much detail they give:
- Centennial Park, 501 Browns Valley Road. The city lists four pickleball courts. The page doesn't say whether they're lit. The park's later master-plan phase calls for six new lighted courts, but they are tennis courts, not pickleball.
- Cannon Station Park, 1065 Opal Drive. The city directory lists pickleball and tennis among its amenities but gives no court count.
- North Orchard Park. Visit Vacaville describes its pickleball courts as public. The city's own directory entry lists only tennis courts there.
North Orchard is also where you're most likely to find organized play. Vacaville Pickleball describes itself as a nonprofit working to make the game accessible, and its site has a community sign-up. Visit Vacaville says the group often plays at North Orchard and keeps loaner paddles on hand. Its online calendar showed no events for October 2026, so signing up through the site is the surest way to find out when people are playing.
If you're used to parks like Centennial or Lagoon Valley from weekend walks, our guide to parks, trails and weekend living around Vacaville covers the rest of the map.
The courts that haven't been built yet
Two future additions would change this picture. The Club's six outdoor courts are listed as "coming soon," with no date. On the city side, an August 6, 2025 parks update identified six pickleball courts with solar-powered lighting as a planned Phase 2 at Owl Park. That update gives no delivery date. Still, lit public courts are what the current outdoor listings don't document, and that's what matters for evening play this time of year.
The Club also says more programming is on the way. Stephens told the Reporter that October events were being planned, along with tournaments and leagues, and that the club eventually plans to add volleyball and table tennis. As of the Reporter story, no specific October event had been announced. The Club's site said new programming would be added throughout September.
Getting there over the next few years
If you drive to The Club, the stretch around Vaca Valley Parkway and I-505 is due for construction. In an August 20 release, the City of Vacaville said it had secured $14,887,000 in federal grants for the Vaca Valley Parkway/I-505 Multimodal Improvements Project. Construction is expected to start in spring 2027 and take about 18 months. The plan includes three roundabouts, ramp meters on both I-505 on-ramps, and a separated bicycle and pedestrian crossing over I-505 that closes a gap of about 1,700 feet in the network. Nothing changes on the road this fall. Once work begins, though, and likely into late 2028, getting to the courts will take you through a work zone.
New amenities like a 14-court facility in a converted warehouse are part of the day-to-day local knowledge we bring to every conversation about Vacaville. If you're weighing how close you want to be to the places you actually spend your evenings, Jared Labarga is glad to walk through it with you. Let's Connect.
