Local pickleball operator leases former furniture store in Sheridan

Adam Kahn does his shopping at big box stores.

The founder of 3rd Shot Pickleball has taken over an old grocery store in Wheat Ridge, and a discount homegoods shop in Nevada. And earlier this month, he inked a lease for a 43,000-square-foot former furniture store in Sheridan.

“It’s the preferred type of real estate,” Kahn said.

The pickleball aficionado plans to turn the space just south of the intersection of Santa Fe Drive and Hampden Avenue into a “flagship” location for 3rd Shot. It will be the company’s sixth spot, and have more courts than the first five.

“There’s challenges with real estate … You got to have the right ceiling height, the right column spacing, the right parking and the right zoning,” Kahn said. “All of those things are critical and they’re not necessarily easy to find a building that has all of those characteristics.”

“And the [new] building has all the right characteristics.”

Kahn, who plans to open in the fall, expects to spend over $2 million to turn the old Conn’s furniture store at 3950 Riverpoint Pkwy. into a pickleball destination. There will be 16 courts, four of which will be professional-sized.

He also plans to install a mezzanine inside that will add extra viewing and lounge space.

“No other club in Colorado has that,” Kahn said.

This will be the 3rd Shot’s third Colorado location. Kahn opened his first space in Longmont in November 2023. In addition to there, Wheat Ridge and Nevada, he also operates in Indiana. A second spot in that state will open next month.

“When we heard that Conn’s locations were becoming available, we looked at the ones in Colorado and this one is located in a great area where we’re not close to any of our competitors,” Kahn said.

The space, right next to a Costco, will also have a full bar, pro shop and a couple of private rooms that can be reserved for events and parties.

“It will have the nicest acoustics of any of our clubs,” he said.

That, Kahn said, will be due to the $250,000 he’s spending to coat the building’s 26-foot ceilings with “acoustic foam,” which will help dampen the noise of the notoriously loud sport. Another expensive line-item: $12,000 Laykold surfacing for each of the courts, which is the same material that tennis pros play on at the U.S. Open.

Kahn’s high-dollar buildouts have paid off thus far, though. 3rd Shot has almost 1,500 members who each pay $68 monthly. His Wheat Ridge location raked in more than $1.8 million in its first full year in 2024.

“All the clubs are profitable,” he said.

Kahn, who previously ran a tennis club in Lakewood for 20 years, calls 3rd Shot a “semi-private” club. Non-members can come in and use the facilities, but there’s discounts and benefits to being a member. A member pays $6 per person for doubles to use the court for an hour, while a non-member pays $10.

Unlike some other pickleball operators, 3rd Shot doesn’t use a franchise model. Kahn and his partners instead pick an operator in each market, who gets an ownership stake in their particular spot.

Kahn also has a mishmash of other investors and partners. The main group consists of him, Oskar Blues Brewing Co. founder Dale Katechis and Kahn’s longtime friends Wayne Williamson and David Bailey. But at the new location, he’s brought in Rick Witsken, co-founder of the National Pickleball League, as an investor. Kahn called him “one of the most decorated” pickleball players.

As he gears up to open his new Sheridan location, along with a suburban Indianapolis spot in mid-April, Kahn is still hunting for more spaces for his business to expand, in Colorado and beyond.

“We have one in mind that I can’t disclose yet,” Kahn said of his Colorado location plans. “But we’re actively pursuing.”

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