Epic Padel's US Expansion: Charlotte, Tysons, Milwaukee
Epic Padel's US Expansion: Charlotte, Tysons, Milwaukee
One operator, three markets, and a real estate strategy built on leftover square footage
In September 2025, Epic Padel opened five outdoor courts behind a suburban athletic club in north Charlotte. A year later the same company is finishing an eight-court indoor club inside a Milwaukee warehouse and waiting on six courts built into an office parking lot in Northern Virginia.
Three markets, three wildly different buildings, one playbook. Epic is one of a small group of US operators — alongside Reserve Padel, Bay Padel and Cube Padel — that has stopped building one club at a time and started building a network. What makes Epic worth watching is where it puts them.
The company behind it
Epic Padel Inc. is based in Arlington, Virginia, and run day to day through Blue Chip Sports Management. Hala Sarkis is CEO. COO Tim Bainton is a former British NCAA and ATP tennis player who spent two decades in the US racquet and health-club business before moving into padel. The company raised $10 million in September 2025 to fund expansion and has signed a sponsorship deal with adidas — the Charlotte courts carry adidas branding.
Bainton has been explicit about the positioning: Epic is chasing the middle class rather than the one percent. That is a meaningfully different bet from the private members-club model that has defined padel in Miami and New York, and it shows up directly in the real estate.
The three clubs
Epic Padel @ Prosperity Athletic Club
Epic's first club is not a standalone destination. It is five outdoor courts added to an existing suburban athletic club at 9300 Browne Road, about twenty minutes north of uptown Charlotte. Players get the padel courts plus Prosperity's fitness center, pools and pro shop, and the courts themselves are adidas-branded.
It was a smart first move. Rather than underwriting a ground-up facility in a market with almost no padel history, Epic borrowed demand that already existed — a club full of tennis and fitness members who could try padel without changing where they drive on a Saturday. Charlotte now has a small but real scene; our Charlotte guide has the full picture.
Courts: 5 | Type: Outdoor
Epic Padel Tysons
Tysons is the most unusual piece of real estate in the network: six outdoor courts on roughly 37,700 square feet of surface parking at Greensboro Park, an office complex at 8200 Greensboro Drive. The Fairfax County Planning Commission approved it in December 2025 as a temporary use — the courts are expected to sit there about four years while the underlying site waits on redevelopment.
That temporary framing is the entire idea. Epic gets Beltway-adjacent land a short walk from the Silver Line without paying for permanent construction, and the landlord earns rent and foot traffic on a parking lot that was producing neither. Plans include locker rooms, a concession stand, outdoor seating and bike racks.
The club was originally targeted for spring 2026 and is still listed as not yet open in our directory as of early September 2026, so check the club page before you drive out. When it does open it will be among the most accessible public padel in Virginia; our DMV padel update covers how it fits alongside Bethesda and East Potomac.
Courts: 6 | Type: Outdoor
Epic Padel Milwaukee
Epic's Wisconsin debut takes about 31,000 square feet of a 62,000-square-foot industrial building completed in 2023 at 12350 W Brown Deer Road, on Milwaukee's far northwest side. The other half of the building is a Crescent Electric Supply warehouse, which tells you most of what you need to know about the rent.
Eight indoor courts make it the largest club in the network by court count, and the amenity list reads more like a co-working space than a sports hall: warm-up area, private locker rooms and showers, a social lounge, desks, and a grab-and-go café. Epic announced an end-of-August 2026 opening, but our directory still shows it as opening soon — treat the date as close but unconfirmed.
It will be Milwaukee's second padel club after PADEL MKE on the south side, giving Wisconsin north-south coverage across a metro that had no courts at all three years ago. More in our Milwaukee guide.
Courts: 8 | Type: Indoor
The playbook: take the awkward square footage
Line the three up and the pattern is obvious. A parking lot waiting on redevelopment. Half an industrial building shared with an electrical supplier. Spare land behind a suburban gym. None of it is prime retail, and that is precisely the point.
A padel court is 20m by 10m plus run-off — a footprint that fits badly into most retail bays but fits beautifully into the leftovers: warehouses, parking decks, big-box back-of-house space. Because padel needs height and area rather than street frontage, an operator can shop in the cheapest tier of commercial real estate and still deliver the full product. Our guide to opening a padel club in the US breaks down what that actually costs.
The corollary is speed. Epic has gone from one club to four announced sites in roughly a year, and has said publicly that it wants 100 courts operating nationwide by the end of 2026. You cannot move at that pace if every location is a ground-up build.
Indoor in the north, outdoor in the south
The build type tracks the weather almost exactly. Charlotte and Tysons are outdoor. Milwaukee is indoor and fully enclosed.
That is less a cost decision than a season-length one. Outdoor courts in the Carolinas and Northern Virginia are playable most of the year, with a soft six weeks in January and February. Outdoor courts in Milwaukee would be dead from November through March — half the year gone. Eight indoor courts cost far more per court, but indoor is the only version of that club that works.
It is a useful rule of thumb for reading any US padel announcement: if an operator is building outdoors in a cold-winter metro, ask what the plan is for February.
About the other Epic, in Florida
Worth clearing up, because the names collide in search results. Epic Athletic Club inside Sawgrass Mills Mall in Sunrise, Florida, is a different business. It opened in October 2024, books through PlayByPoint rather than Epic Padel's own app, and does not appear among Epic Padel's locations. We found no evidence the two companies are connected.
It is a genuinely good club and worth a visit if you are in Broward — but an Epic Padel membership will not get you on court there.
Epic Athletic Club (@ Sawgrass Mills Mall)
Seven indoor padel courts and ten pickleball courts across an 80,000-square-foot space with its own mall entrance and free parking. The 24-foot ceilings give lobs real room, and the recovery setup — steam room, sauna, cold plunge — is better than most dedicated padel clubs manage. A rare case of a struggling mall anchor becoming the best indoor racquet venue in the county.
Courts: 7 | Type: Indoor | Ceiling: 24ft | Rating: 4.3★
What to expect as a player
Charlotte is the only Epic Padel club you can play today, and it sits inside a members-first athletic club, so call ahead about guest access and court booking. Tysons and Milwaukee are both collecting interest lists ahead of opening, and Epic has been releasing first-priority booking to people who registered during construction — worth doing now if either is your market.
Across all three, expect the same programming template: open play, clinics, private lessons, leagues, junior programs and tournaments. Epic sells its own racquet and apparel line, Epiholic, in club pro shops, though it is worth comparing against the adidas padel range at Racket Central before you commit to a frame.
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