Prosper Got Its Pickleball Courts. The Mayor Says Don't Expect More For Three Years.

As Community Impact reported, on January 7, the eight new pickleball courts at Raymond Community Park opened on a first-come, first-served basis, daylight hours only, no lights yet, no fanfare beyond a post on the town's social media. At the February 24 ribbon cutting, Community Impact reported that Mayor David Bristol said something that mattered more than the courts themselves: Raymond would be the last park to come online for at least three years, because Prosper's $24 million parks and recreation bond failed at the ballot box in 2025.

That is the part worth sitting with if you actually play here. The town just built its best public pickleball facility to date, and in the same breath told residents not to expect another one anytime soon.

The Courts That Finally Opened

Raymond Community Park sits on 70 acres at 2101 East First Street, in the northwest corner of Coit Road and First Street. It was never supposed to cost what it ended up costing. The project was initially funded through the 2020 bond program at $15 million. By the time construction wrapped, the budget had climbed to $26.357 million, partly because the scope grew along the way, including the addition of the pickleball courts themselves.

Community Impact quoted Parks and Recreation Director Dan Baker at the ribbon cutting: "I've been hearing about 'We want pickleball' since I got here. This is an addition of eight courts, and we're seeing them get used all the time." Vibrance Pulla, a Prosper resident who was among the first to play on the new courts, said having them has been exciting for her and her friends, giving everyone a real chance to get on court time that didn't exist before.

The tennis and pickleball courts opened first, on January 7. The trails and playground followed at the February 24 ribbon cutting. The baseball diamonds and lit multipurpose fields, funded in part by a $950,000 donation from the Prosper Area Soccer Organization for field lighting, were on track to open by early summer, rounding out the park's build-out this year. The park is named for Dudley Raymond, who served as the town's Parks and Recreation Director from 2016 until his death in October 2021, and the D-backward-R brand from his family's West Texas cattle ranch appears throughout the grounds as a tribute.

Why the Mayor Called It the Last One for a While

Here is the detail that changes how you should think about this park. Baker didn't stop at praising the new courts. He added the harder truth, as Community Impact reported: "We know the athletic fields will be overrun again. We are so far behind on the number of athletic fields needed."

Bristol was more direct about what comes next, or rather what doesn't, as Community Impact reported.

"We're not going to build new facilities, so that means no new pickleball courts, no new basketball courts, no new tennis courts for the near future."

The reason is the failed 2025 bond. Without that funding mechanism, Baker said future park expansion will likely require a new bond program or alternative funding strategies, neither of which is close to landing. In the meantime, the town has raised park fees and fines to cover operating and maintenance costs at Raymond and its existing parks. That keeps the lights on. It does not build a ninth court.

This matters because Prosper's population keeps climbing while its public court inventory just got capped. According to Trust for Public Land data cited when the park opened, 46 percent of Prosper residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. Raymond was built specifically to raise that number on the east side of town, where Baker said the area really needed additional parkland. It did that job. It just also happened to be the last job of its kind for a while.

Where to Play Right Now

If you're mapping out where to actually show up with a paddle, the picture as of this fall looks like this.

Raymond Community Park has the newest and largest public courts in town, eight of them, open during daylight hours on a first-come, first-served basis. The demand is real and visible. Prosper's fifth annual P-Town Throwdown tournament was held there on March 28, drawing 33 teams to play on the new courts, the first major event to use the space.

Lakewood Park, a smaller neighborhood site on Coit Road, adds four more courts along with a cricket pitch, sand volleyball, and lighted soccer fields. It was built around the same time as Raymond and was explicitly designed, per Baker, to meet the town's pickleball and cricket needs in a different part of Prosper.

Hackberry Park, on Goldenrod Lane in western Prosper, is the smallest option: two half basketball courts, one of which doubles as a pickleball court. It's not a destination, but it's a practical drop-in option if you live west of Preston Road and don't want to drive across town for a game.

Beyond the public system, some of the best courts in Prosper aren't open to the public at all. Windsong Ranch, a master-planned community within town limits, built an amenity center called The Courthouse specifically around racket sports. It's designed to resemble the neighborhood's original barn, reuses the site's old silos as a design element, and includes both covered and uncovered pickleball courts along with a beer garden and social gathering space. It's a genuinely good facility. It's also restricted to Windsong Ranch residents, which means it doesn't move the needle on public court access for anyone else in Prosper.

The Private Sector Already Picked Up the Slack

While the town was explaining why it can't build more courts, the market answered on its own. In June, the Prosper Town Council approved zoning for Volleys Village, a 54.2-acre mixed-use development that replaces agricultural land with what amounts to a private racket sports district: 10 indoor tennis courts, 14 outdoor courts, and 10 indoor pickleball courts, along with indoor and outdoor pools, a full fitness center, yoga and cycling studios, and a pro shop.

The project also plans a tennis academy led by a former professional player who previously coached at Southern Methodist University, aimed at pulling serious players from across North Texas, not just Prosper. Future phases add restaurants, retail, office space, a hotel, and an event venue, plus a new roadway connecting FM 1385 and Parvin Road to handle the added traffic.

Volleys Village won't open next month. It's a multi-year build tied to market demand, per the town's own approval documents. But it tells you where the next real expansion in court supply is actually coming from. It isn't a future bond election. It's a private developer betting that Prosper's appetite for racket sports is large enough to fund a standalone destination, courts, coaching, and hospitality all under one roof.

What This Means If You Play

The short version: the public court map you see today is likely the public court map you'll have for a while. Raymond's eight courts and Lakewood's four are the newest and best options, and they're going to stay busy, because the town has said outright that it isn't adding to that count for at least three years. Hackberry remains the low-key neighborhood fallback. If you happen to live in Windsong Ranch, The Courthouse solves the problem entirely, but that access doesn't extend past the neighborhood gate.

For everyone else, the next real jump in available courts is Volleys Village, and that's a private facility on a private timeline, not a town project with a groundbreaking date. Until it opens, the eight new courts at Raymond Community Park are doing a lot of the work for a town that's still adding residents every year.

If you're weighing what daily life actually looks like across Prosper's different pockets, from Windsong Ranch to the streets near Frontier Park, the Prosper neighborhood page has more on how the town's different corners function day to day.

Whether you're settled in Prosper already or thinking about what a move here would actually look like once you factor in things like this, Parthvi Shah is happy to talk through it. Book an appointment anytime.