Joe Williams had an Olympic-quality Gerflor Taraflex playing floor and not a lot of places to put it.

Born and raised in Farmington and a resident once more, Williams had put himself in the most unusual of positions. While returning to one’s hometown as a 20-something might be a common tale, Williams’s path to get there is anything but.

Williams plays handball, an indoor team sport that most Americans might only see once every four years during the Summer Olympics. Though handball isn’t the most popular of sports in the United States, it’s quite a big deal in other places. Like Denmark. Handball is massively popular in Denmark, where the sport was invented and maintains a passionate following year-round.

Williams shares the Danes’ passion for the sport. He was a member of the under-21 team for the Olympics-affiliated USA Team Handball organization, playing in international competitions. He also played professionally, including a stretch where he lived and played in Denmark itself. Returning to Michigan, Williams founded the Detroit Handball Club in 2019 and has worked to spread his joy for the sport with children and adults alike.

And that’s why there’s an Olympic-quality Gerflor Taraflex playing floor atop the ground of what was most recently the home goods store Tuesday Morning. The national retailer left downtown Farmington in May 2023 and the 14,000 sq. ft. storefront would remain vacant until the fall of 2024. That’s when Joe Williams showed up with the Olympic floor he acquired, carefully installing it as he prepared to serve up his business concept to the community that helped raise him.

“The floor would only be used once or twice a year so we were looking for a way to get some more use out of it,” he says.

“And then I got into pickleball.”

The Pickleball Pop-Up is located at 23314 Farmington Rd. in downtown Farmington.

Pickleball. The country’s fastest-growing sport has a bit of a supply and demand problem as the seemingly sudden popularity of the game has often jammed local tennis courts with pickleball matches as players seek a suitable surface and a net. Recently, municipalities have embraced the sport’s popularity and started building dedicated pickleball courts and even complexes to accommodate players and leagues in earnest. 

“I was looking for ways to use the handball floor and I got into pickleball. Those are kind of the two catalysts here. But then the third catalyst is that I live in downtown Farmington and the Tuesday Morning space had been empty for a while,” says Williams. “I just reached out to the landlord and said that I was testing out this concept.”

His concept? Repurposing a vacant storefront in a downtown strip mall into a pickleball destination.
"Our logo is a teddy bear – there’s nothing ferocious about the games that we have here,” Williams says.
The Pickleball Pop-Up opened its doors this past December, offering open and drop-in play sessions, court reservations, leagues, tournaments, lessons, and more. Williams used his Olympic handball floor to create the four pickleball courts within the cavernous commercial space, his own logo designs adorning merchandise on the shelves and posters on the wall. Refreshments are on hand. And even passers-by might consider stopping in as Williams offers paddles and balls available at no extra charge.

Williams negotiated a temporary lease through March, allowing him the time to test out his concept. He wasn’t sure what to expect when he pursued the idea, he says, but the opportunity arose and he took it.

“Things got in motion. I needed an open space that can fit the floor and that can fit some kind of sporting activity in there. Originally, I was thinking I’d find a warehouse space or something like that,” says Williams. “But it’s just kind of unique to have a sports facility within a retail space in such a high traffic area. I don’t think that’s too common.”

"We wanted a place where we can learn and play pickleball in a low key, laid back environment," says Williams.

The Pickleball Pop-Up can be found in the Downtown Farmington Center, a large strip mall at the heart of historic downtown. Its construction in the early 1960s came at a time when traditional and walkable downtowns were razed and paved over for parking lots and strip malls. While that may have seemed like a good idea at the time, it’s no coincidence that the iconic car-centric suburbs of post-war Detroit, like Livonia and Southfield, are now looking to create traditional downtowns that communities like Farmington have always had.
"It’s just kind of unique to have a sports facility within a retail space in such a high traffic area," says Williams.
Farmington is fortunate that developers didn’t carve up more of their historic downtown in those post-war years of the 20th century. The shopping center and its parking lot remain today, its storefronts almost completely occupied. Riley Park punctuates its center as a community hub. And while national retailers like Dressbarn and Tuesday Morning have closed in recent years, they’ve been replaced with destination businesses like Dearborn Music and Pickleball Pop-Up, respectively.

“A cool thing about that shopping center is it’s not dominated by what people would think a shopping center would have, with mostly chain stores,” says John Bry, program coordinator at Main Street Oakland County. “It is mostly local businesses there, with a few exceptions, but mostly small, local businesses.”

Joe Williams had an Olympic-quality Gerflor Taraflex playing floor and not a lot of places to put it.

To go from pop-up to permanent is the dream of many a budding entrepreneur. It’s happened here in downtown Farmington, where the Downtown Development Authority’s innovative pop-up program once hosted Skep Space. The artist incubator and gallery would eventually transition from a DDA-managed pop-up space into its own permanent location just down the block.

After a few weeks learning the business, Joe Williams recently decided that he too would seek a permanent location in or around downtown Farmington. It could be at his current location, should things work out that way, or maybe further down the block. But the experience here has emboldened Williams in his pursuit to bring people together through sport.

“For me and a lot of people I know, we wanted a place where we can learn and play pickleball in a low key, laid back environment. Like, our logo is a teddy bear – there’s nothing ferocious about the games that we have here,” Williams says. “It’s just about people getting together, exercising, and doing something healthy and fun.”

The Pickleball Pop-Up is located at 23314 Farmington Rd. in downtown Farmington.