Yesterday marked one month since the grand opening of the Sterling Heights Athletic Hub, an indoor pickleball and ping pong center built by the city of Sterling Heights. I went over around 12:30 p.m. to take a look at how it’s doing.
It seemed like there was some electrical work going on out front. A red work truck from Advantage Electric & Controls was parked outside, and a ladder was set up in front of the doors, leading up to a hole in the ceiling where a panel had been removed, from which there came the clinking and grunting sounds of a man at work.
When I walked inside, a friendly lady behind the counter immediately greeted me with a well-delivered, non-overwhelming rundown of the facilities. I asked her how busy the Athletic Hub had been in its first month, and she said it had been “pretty busy but not unmanageable.” While I was there, I counted two people playing ping pong, 15 people playing pickleball across four of the courts and saw a handful of people in a side room on laptops, having a meeting.
Next to one of the courts, a sign showed the concept art for a mural being painted on the backside of this building by Sterling Heights resident Wendy Popko. It’s modeled after the classic “Greetings From…” postcard design, with illustrations referencing local landmarks and events filling and surrounding the letters of “STERLING HEIGHTS.”
Her agreement with the city originally had a deadline of July 10, the day before the grand opening, but she didn’t end up hitting that deadline. She was out there working on it yesterday, with substantially more completed than when I last saw it a month ago.
The left side is almost all filled in; where before there were sketch lines and a blob of background color, we’re beginning to be able to see Upton House, one of the oldest houses in Sterling Heights, and the Halo, the city’s controversial roadside sculpture.
The right side is a little more filled in than it was before, but still patchier than the left side.
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