BIVI Padel Virginia Beach: Hampton Roads' First Courts

The Build: A Former Beach Cinema Reborn

For more than a decade, the Beach Cinema Alehouse at 941 Laskin Road sat as one of Virginia Beach's odder vacancies — a former dine-in movie theater on a busy resort-corridor stretch with nothing to show. That ends in 2027. In late 2025, a partnership between Jason Vickers-Smith and Ahmad Butt closed on the property for $6.3 million and announced plans to gut and expand the building into BIVI Padel Virginia Beach, branded operationally as "Padel Foundry."

The plan adds roughly 12,000 square feet to the existing footprint and converts the cinema's open volume into seven indoor padel courts plus one pickleball court. The ceilings, conveniently, were already built for projection — well above the 30-foot minimum padel needs for clean overhead lob play.

7 Courts + 1 Pickleball: The Configuration

Seven indoor courts is meaningful scale for a market that currently has zero. For context, most established East Coast clubs operate four to six courts; Padel Foundry slots in among the larger single-site facilities in the region from day one.

The single pickleball court is a hedge, not a pivot — Virginia Beach has a deep pickleball community, and one shared crossover court gives the venue an easy on-ramp for casual players who haven't picked up a padel racket yet. Membership and pricing have not been announced, but the operators have publicly described the model as a social "third place," with food and beverage delivered through partnerships with local Virginia Beach operators rather than a fully in-house restaurant.

Why Virginia's Padel Map Now Reaches the Coast

Until this announcement, Virginia padel activity clustered around the Northern Virginia and DC suburbs, with a thin presence around Charlottesville. The coast — Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News — had nothing. With more than 1.7 million residents and a steady tourist economy, Hampton Roads had been the largest US metro area without a single dedicated padel court.

BIVI fixes that overnight, and it sets up a sensible in-state triangle: Northern Virginia drives weekday play, Charlottesville holds the central spine, and the coast finally has an anchor. For traveling players, the Oceanfront location is convenient — Laskin Road is a few blocks from the boardwalk and walkable to most resort-strip hotels.

Targeting Early 2027 — What That Means for Hampton Roads Players

Padel build-outs tend to slip. Court surfaces, HVAC, and lighting routinely add three to six months, and BIVI is doing a substantial interior renovation rather than a clean-slate build. A realistic expectation: doors open somewhere between Q1 and mid-2027.

For Hampton Roads players starting to learn the game now, the smartest pre-opening moves are:

• Get a racket. Start in the $90–$140 range; Racket Central is the easiest first stop for beginner-friendly options.
• Find practice partners. Local pickleball, tennis, and squash players are the highest-conversion crowd, and Virginia Beach has plenty of all three.
• Track the club page. Drop a follow on the BIVI Padel Virginia Beach listing so you get pinged when membership info, demo days, and the soft-open schedule are announced.

The Hampton Roads market has been waiting a long time. By the time the courts open, it should be ready.