AKIKA opens a four-court pickleball facility inside a Tokyo shopping centre, calling it Japan's first permanent mall-based indoor site

AKIKA Corporation has opened a four-court indoor pickleball facility, PickleK Pickleballcourt & Shop Wakabadai, on the second floor of Frespo Wakabadai West, a shopping centre in Inagi on Tokyo's western edge, the company said. AKIKA describes it as Japan's first permanently installed indoor pickleball facility inside a shopping centre, based on its own research as of August 2026.

The facility opened 1 September with four courts, open 9am to 10pm, with open-court weekday play priced at ¥2,000 for four hours; paddles rent for ¥400 and shoes for ¥200, according to the company. It sits a two-minute walk from Wakabadai station on the Keio Sagamihara Line. AKIKA's president, Kawamoto, said in a statement that the company wants to grow pickleball beyond a competitive sport into what it calls a 'third sport' for everyday life — a 'third place' outside work and home where people of different generations can mix.

PickleK adds a Tokyo mall to a pickleball build-out that has spread fast across Japanese retail and hospitality property this year, from resort-hotel courts in Karuizawa and Izu to standalone urban clubs in Toyosu and Shibuya. For a neighbourhood shopping centre, four indoor courts function less as a conventional tenant and more as a footfall anchor: a low-cost racket sport with a shallow learning curve gives the mall a reason for repeat visits that doesn't compete with its existing shops, and every visitor who comes to play still has to walk past them.