WASHINGTON — Construction crews have begun dismantling the aging East Potomac Tennis Center, starting a privately financed renovation of one of the District’s best-known public racquet facilities after years of planning and delays.
Work began Thursday at the center in East Potomac Park, according to The Washington Post. The project is being led by Michael Retta and East Potomac Racquet Sports Partners, which signed a 45-year lease with the National Park Service in July 2025.
The plan calls for 10 rebuilt clay tennis courts, six hard courts and eight to 10 pickleball courts, along with improvements to fencing, paths, parking and landscaping. A later phase would renovate the five-court indoor facility and its supporting structures.\
The project arrives amid broader uncertainty over recreation on federal land along the Potomac. President Donald Trump has promoted a major redesign of the adjacent East Potomac Golf Links, while the Park Service continues to negotiate over the future of the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park.
The tennis center at East Potomac closed in late 2024. Retta’s organization signed its lease the following summer but continued surveying the property, assessing utilities and designing the improvements before receiving permission to start construction this month.
The indoor-court renovation remains planned for a later phase. No firm reopening date has been announced for that portion of the facility.
