Pickleball lovers have a new home in Rohnert Park’s struggling Expressway Mall, inside the reimagined former home of Reading Cinemas Rohnert Park.

The 80,000-square-foot movie theater has been converted into a sprawling indoor and outdoor pickleball club, complete with a gym and wellness services. While it has been open to the public since Dec. 1, Centerline 33’s grand opening Saturday highlighted how popular the site has already become with pickleball enthusiasts and community visitors.

The plan for Rohnert Park’s former movie theater site was announced in 2024 as a membership-based pickleball arena with a new health club. The partners behind the project — Richard Coombs, Bill Carson and Jack Weaver — say this development is now the largest pickleball venue in the North Bay.

Several days ahead of the grand opening, the building was filled with pickleball players who, like Justin Herbruger, were spending their afternoon enjoying a game. The Sebastopol resident said he was visiting the center with his sister and that it reminded him of a similar business in Portland, Oregon. “It’s great because all of the pickleball junkies come together to meet each other.

“The only downside is that it’s difficult to get an asynchronous game going indoors. But if you have a good group, it doesn’t matter,” Herbruger added.

Coombs and Carson unveiled the renovations this week ahead of Saturday’s grand opening. Developer Coombs said it took a year of negotiations and another year of construction to renovate the site to build 17 indoor and 16 outdoor pickleball courts and a 1,500-square-foot gym. This month, the owners will open a Wellness Spa & Recovery Center, offering red light therapy, cold and salt water plunge baths and infrared saunas — using cooler temperatures measuring between 110 degrees and 135 degree Fahrenheit, compared to traditional saunas at up to 195 degrees.

The owners said they intended to preserve the old movie theater’s look and feel by using some of the cinema’s chairs and the colorful insulated wall treatments and lighting. The concessions bar now offers grab-and-go food items like sandwiches, salads and energy bars as well as local beer and wine. The second-floor space once used for film projectors now serves as a hangout area with cornhole stations and multiple viewing areas over the courts.

Pickleball, a combination of tennis and pingpong, has grown increasingly popular in cities looking to improve community engagement. Rohnert Park staff said in 2024 health and wellness-focused businesses are key to revitalizing increasingly vacant retail centers, and the local pickleball club already meets at Sunrise Park on Snyder Lane with clinics, matches and open play times.

That’s what the partners say they hope to bring to the Expressway corridor. Coombs said that while other indoor pickleball facilities are adding new amenities like food courts, theirs focuses on health and wellness.

“The most unique thing is the reuse of an existing structure at a time when a number of retail buildings are going out of business,” he said. “But our emphasis is on health and having fun as a club.”

The center offers players three levels of membership and benefits for those who want to enjoy unlimited open play at least five days per week. Packages currently range from $75 to $195 per month per person, with varying initiation fees. The recovery center will cost an additional $35 per month. Carson said a chiropractic firm owned by Austin Martinez and Corissa Torbin will handle physical therapy, including a yoga studio, later in the spring.

Professional player and coach Justin Lynch said the center will hold a tournament March 6-8. Registration closes March 1, he said.

Lynch said he appreciates the facility’s amenities for different skill levels. Some players who complain of knee pain from playing on other courts in Santa Rosa have complimented the indoor courts’ well-padded design. “You can feel the difference when you step on an indoor court versus the outdoor courts,” he said.

Barbara Golden, who leads the center’s youth pickleball program, said Centerline 33 is considering holding summer camps for children.

“I think it’s definitely something that people have been looking for,” she said. Golden added that as a longtime lover of the old movie theater, she appreciates how the building was reimagined for the community.

“I brought my children and grandchildren here for years,” Golden said. “It still has that nostalgic feeling, but it’s something new.”