Kansas, Nashville, Dallas, whatever. Daryl Wyatt’s primary focus isn’t where the Royals or the Chiefs end up, despite his plans to open a large pickleball club and sporting venue across the street from the teams’ current home at the Truman Sports Complex.
Wyatt’s laser-eyed attention is all on turning the former CoCo Key Water Resort underneath the shuttered Adam’s Mark Hotel (which some Reddit users are convinced is haunted) into a regional draw, regardless of who its neighbors are. Wyatt and co-owner Julie Gibson’s pickleball club, SW19, will be more than just a few courts. It will also house the city’s first pro league team in Eastern Jackson County. Wyatt hopes the venue will eventually double as a place for East Side residents to have a healthy, accessible and fun place to go.
“In that area, there is such a need for something along these lines and programming for the youth,” says Wyatt, who is working with the 12.4-acre site owners Community Builders of Kansas City, a local urban-core developer that acquired the resort-hotel in 2020, just months after it shut down.
“We’re extremely fortunate to be part of that, and the area is definitely in need of a bright spot,” says Wyatt of CBKC’s plans to develop the land.
Wyatt’s goal is to start talking to area schools once the facility gets rolling and try to set up youth programs where kids can learn pickleball, compete and even learn aspects of operating a recreational business. This will not be Wyatt and Gibson’s first club—they opened their first location, SW19 Tennis and Pickleball, in Leawood two years ago.
Their more immediate plan, though, is to try to get the facility open in time for PickleCon, an extravaganza for the sport at the Kansas City Convention Center from Aug. 9 to 11. The event will feature competition between teams in the National Pickleball League. Wyatt, a former tennis enthusiast, is a member of the Kansas City Stingers, the local pro NPL team that made its debut earlier this year.
After the new location’s opening, there’s another big date on the horizon: the FIFA 2026 World Cup. The World Cup is being touted as the highest-drawing sporting event in KC’s history and the biggest deal in town since Robert E. McDonnell figured out how to pump water out of the Missouri River and into peoples’ homes.
“We really want to tie in and get some events and open houses going” during the World Cup, Wyatt says. “The beauty of it is we have some time.”
Ironically, while the future locations of two professional sports teams across the street are uncertain, the appetite for pickleball seems insatiable. It’s the fastest-growing sport in the country, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association based in Maryland.
The metro area is no stranger to pickleball, with Overland Park having been given the moniker of the most pickleball-obsessed city in America based on a study of online search volume, according to Visit Overland Park. The metro has dozens of public and private court concepts, such as Chicken N Pickle, but there aren’t many on the East Side.
CBKC has several ideas for the former hotel itself, including another hotel or mixed-use project with multi-family units with different levels of affordability. Wyatt says he supports either.
