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Where to Build a Padel Hall: A Data-Driven Location Analysis	padel-hall-location-guide	en	/en/blog/padel-hall-location-guide	8 criteria for choosing the right location for a padel hall: catchment area, competition, visibility, rent costs, and building regulations — data over gut feeling.	C5

Where to Build a Padel Hall: A Data-Driven Location Analysis

The location decision is the only decision in a padel hall's lifecycle that can't be undone. Poor pricing can be adjusted. A weak marketing strategy can be overhauled. A court surface that turns out to be the wrong choice can be replaced in a few years. The location cannot. Committing to a site based on instinct, or because the rent looked good, embeds a structural risk into every projection that follows. This guide walks through how a data-driven location decision actually works.

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The 8 Criteria for Padel Hall Site Selection

1. Catchment Area Analysis

Before any property is seriously evaluated, the catchment area must be understood. Start with two drive-time isochrones from the candidate site: 15 minutes and 30 minutes. Within these zones, analyse the population — not by headcount alone, but by the metrics that predict padel demand:

Age distribution: The core padel demographic is 25–55. Areas with a median age above 55 or a very young demographic without disposable income are harder markets.

Household income: Destatis publishes income data at district (Kreis) level in Germany, and equivalent regional statistics exist across DACH. Padel isn't luxury, but it isn't mass-market either. Dual-income households with a net monthly income above €3,000 represent the strongest demand cohort.

Employment profile: Areas with high concentrations of knowledge workers, professionals, and dual-income households show the highest willingness to pay for fixed-schedule indoor sports bookings.

Existing sports participation: Is there an active tennis or squash community in the area? Padel has a high conversion rate from both sports — shared audience demographics and transferable technique lower the marketing effort required.

A strong catchment area looks like this: high population density within 15 minutes, age median 30–45, above-average household income, and existing sports infrastructure that proves a sports-active population is already there.

2. Competition Mapping

What padel facilities already exist in the catchment area, and how well-utilized are they? This is the single most important question in the site decision.

Existing padel halls list their courts on booking platforms like Playtomic and Matchi. Spend 30 minutes checking availability for the next weekend across your candidate competitors. Look specifically at peak slots — weekday evenings (17:00–21:00) and weekend mornings (09:00–14:00):

• Courts fully booked at peak: a clear demand signal. The market is absorbing supply. Room for well-located new entrants.
• Substantial availability at peak: either the market is already served, or the venue has an operational problem. Investigate before concluding.

A practical distance heuristic for modeling utilization impact: a competing venue within 5km will typically cost a new hall 15–25% utilization; within 10km, expect 5–15%. These aren't fixed laws, but they provide a sensible baseline for scenario planning.

Important nuance: competition is not a disqualifier. In markets with genuine demand and insufficient supply, a second or third hall can perform strongly. The question is always the ratio of demand to supply, not the mere existence of competitors.

3. Accessibility and Parking

Padel is overwhelmingly a car-visited sport. This has direct operational consequences.

Parking: The working benchmark is 2–3 spaces per court minimum. A four-court facility needs at least 8–12 dedicated spaces — plus buffer for coaches, staff, and the overlap between adjacent booking slots (players arriving early while previous players are still finishing). Parking shortfalls become visible only at peak capacity, and by then they're structurally unfixable.

Public transit: Not a dealbreaker in most DACH markets, but a genuine multiplier where it exists. A facility accessible by S-Bahn or metro reaches a meaningfully broader audience, particularly younger players and urban households without a second car.

Industrial and business park locations often have good car access but no transit connections. That's operationally acceptable for many padel halls — but it should be factored into the target customer profile and marketing assumptions.

4. Visibility and Location Profile

A site on a main road or near a commercial hub generates passive awareness. People see the facility while going about their daily routines, without having searched for it. This reduces the marketing effort required during the launch and ramp-up period.

A site tucked into a secondary industrial estate with no street presence also works — but it demands 30–40% more marketing investment to build awareness from scratch, and requires a stronger digital presence to compensate for the absence of organic traffic.

The tradeoff: premium visible locations typically command 2x the rent per square meter compared to equivalent space in secondary locations. The question to answer is always: what does the visibility premium cost annually, and what would the same budget accomplish as marketing spend? In many cases, the less visible but cheaper location with a proper marketing budget outperforms the visible premium location on net economics.

5. Building Suitability for Conversion

Not every large building is actually suitable for a padel hall. Specific structural requirements apply:

Clear height: Minimum 8 metres of unobstructed ceiling height, ideally 10 metres or more. Below 8 metres, play is possible only with modified court dimensions and is unsuitable for competitive or club-standard use.

Column-free spans: A standard padel court occupies 20m × 10m. With mandatory safety zones, each court requires a column-free area of approximately 22m × 12m. Halls with tight structural grids typically don't work.

Floor capacity: Padel court steel structures are not exceptionally heavy, but they need to be anchored properly. The substrate must have adequate load-bearing capacity.

Power supply: LED lighting to padel standard (300–500 lux on playing surface) draws significant electricity. The existing supply connection needs to support this, or be upgradable without prohibitive cost.

German industrial and warehouse buildings from the 1980s and 1990s frequently meet these criteria and are often available at substantially lower rent per square meter than retail or office space. They represent the most common conversion path for padel halls in DACH.

6. Rent-to-Revenue Ratio

Padel halls need substantial floor area: 1,500–3,000 sqm for a 4–8 court facility including changing rooms, lounge, reception, and storage. Rent per sqm therefore has an outsized impact on the unit economics.

The working rule: annual total rent should not exceed 15% of projected Year 3 revenue. Worked example:

• Projected Year 3 revenue: €1.1 million
• Maximum sustainable annual rent: €165,000 (15%)
• Monthly rent: €13,750
• At 1,500 sqm: approximately €9.20/sqm/month

If the asking rent sits materially above this threshold, the site has a structural economics problem — regardless of how well it scores on other criteria. This is one of the two hard disqualifiers in site selection (the other being building unsuitability).

The 15% rule is a planning ceiling, not a guarantee of viability. Facilities with strong ancillary revenue (F&B, coaching, events) can tolerate a higher rent burden; lean court-rental-only operations need to be below it.

7. Area Growth Trajectory

Is the surrounding area developing? New residential or commercial development nearby can significantly expand the catchment base during the first years of operation. Securing a site ahead of completed area development often means lower rent and a first-mover position that becomes increasingly valuable as the area fills in.

Information sources: municipal development plans (Bebauungspläne), land use plans (Flächennutzungspläne), reports from the local economic development office (Wirtschaftsförderung), and regional population projections from national statistics offices (Destatis for Germany, Statistics Austria, Swiss Federal Statistical Office). Reviewing building permit statistics for the surrounding area gives a useful leading indicator of near-term population growth.

8. Regulatory Environment

The building permit (Baugenehmigung in Germany) is one of the most consistently underestimated risk factors in padel hall projects. Processing times of six to nine months are not exceptional — and every month of delay means rent running without revenue.

Key checks before committing to a site:

Zoning (Nutzungsklasse): Is commercial sports use permissible at this location under the Baunutzungsverordnung? Commercial sports facilities are not permitted in all zone types. A pre-inquiry (Voranfrage) to the building authority — typically informal and often free — can answer this before any lease is signed.

Noise regulations: Critical for outdoor courts. Germany's TA Lärm sets strict noise level thresholds for sports facilities depending on the surrounding zone category. These regulations can permanently restrict outdoor court operation if the site is near residential zones. Assess this before investing in outdoor infrastructure.

Municipal support: Some municipalities actively want sports infrastructure — expedited permitting, discounted commercial space, or direct funding. Contacting the local Wirtschaftsförderung early in the site selection process costs nothing and occasionally surfaces meaningful support.

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The Site Scoring Framework: From 8 Criteria to a Decision

Any investor evaluating multiple sites in parallel needs a comparison tool. A weighted scoring matrix works well: each criterion is rated 1–5 and multiplied by a weighting factor.

A suggested weighting:

Criterion	Weight
Catchment area (population, income, demographics)	25%
Competitive landscape	20%
Rent-to-revenue ratio	20%
Building suitability	15%
Accessibility and parking	10%
Regulatory environment	5%
Visibility	3%
Area growth trajectory	2%

This produces a total score per site that enables structured comparison. Important caveat: a site that fails either of the two hard disqualifiers — rent-to-revenue ratio above the threshold, or building structurally unsuitable — is eliminated regardless of total score.

The matrix also reveals where trade-offs are being made explicitly, which makes conversations with co-investors, partners, and banks more grounded.

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Common Mistakes in Site Selection

The visibility trap: A premium-visibility site on a main arterial road sounds compelling. But padel customers book online. Visibility helps with passive brand awareness — it doesn't replace functional digital marketing, and it costs substantially more per sqm. Quantify what the visibility premium costs per year, and compare that to what the same budget would do as targeted digital advertising. The math often favors the less visible but cheaper site with a real marketing budget.

Underestimating parking: Parking problems only become fully visible at operating capacity — the busiest weekend morning when every slot is full and customers can't find a space. By that point, the problem is structural and unfixable without significant additional cost or renegotiation. Assess parking capacity before signing.

Ignoring regulatory risk: Planning permissions fail or stall for reasons that were often visible in advance — wrong zone type, outdoor court noise exposure, adjacent protected buildings. A pre-inquiry to the building authority before committing to a lease takes a week and can save months of wasted effort and meaningful sunk costs.

Anchoring too early on a single site: The best location decisions come from comparing at least three to five options side by side. Taking the first workable option forfeits the ability to optimize the rent, location quality, and suitability trade-off. The scoring matrix only pays off if there's something to compare.

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Reading Market Maturity: What Stage Is Your Target City?

The 8 criteria above evaluate specific sites. But before shortlisting sites, it is worth stepping back to read the stage of the overall market — because the right operational strategy differs fundamentally depending on where a city sits in its padel development cycle.

Established markets: Booking platforms show consistent peak-hour sell-out across most venues. Waiting lists are common. Demand is validated beyond doubt. The challenge here is elevated rent, elevated build costs, and entrenched operators who have already captured community loyalty. New entrants need a genuine differentiation angle — a superior facility specification, a better location within the city, or an F&B and coaching product that existing venues don't offer. Entry costs are high; returns, if execution is strong, are also high. Munich is the canonical German example.

Growth markets: Demand is clearly building — booking availability tightens at weekends, new facilities are announced regularly, and the sport is gaining local media visibility. Supply hasn't caught up, so identifiable gaps still exist in specific districts or the surrounding hinterland. The risk profile is lower than in emerging markets, but the window for securing good real estate at reasonable rent is narrowing. The premium for moving decisively goes to those who arrive before the obvious sites are taken.

Emerging markets: Limited current supply, a small but growing player base, and padel not yet mainstream enough to generate organic walk-in demand. Entry costs — rent especially — are lower. The constraint is that demand must be actively created rather than captured. Operators who succeed here invest in community: beginner programmes, local leagues, school partnerships, conversions from tennis clubs. The time to first profitability is longer, but the competitive position built in the first two years is often decisive for the long term.

Before committing to a site search in any city, calibrate where it sits on this spectrum. The 8-criteria framework then tells you whether a specific site works; market maturity tells you what kind of operator and strategy is required to make it work at all.

Padelnomics tracks venue density, booking platform utilisation, and demographic fit for cities across Europe. Use the country market overview to read the maturity stage of your target city before evaluating individual sites.

→ View market data by country

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How Padelnomics Helps

Padelnomics analyzes market data for your target area: player density, competitive supply, demand signals from booking platform data, and demographic indicators at municipality level. For your candidate sites, Padelnomics produces a catchment area profile and a side-by-side comparison — so the decision is grounded in data rather than a map with a finger pointing at it.

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