Community leaders dedicate new pickleball courts at Grant Park

UTICA — Community members officially welcomed new pickleball courts to Grant Park in Utica Oct. 8 during a dedication ceremony.

Jars Cannabis played an important role in the development of the pickleball project. Since the dispensary officially opened in February 2025 at 45221 Utica Park Blvd., it has been helping with projects in Utica such as the Christmas tree lighting celebration and helping to place picnic tables at one of the dog parks in the city.

“Oh, so any city we go to we’re all about the community engagement, right?” said Raymond Abro, chief operating officer with Jars Cannabis. “So, if there’s an opportunity that we can get into it, we want to make sure that we’re focused on building the community, and not just building a business. We had the opportunity to put together this pickleball court, and we took it.”

Utica city officials had been interested in adding pickleball courts to their community for several years.

“First we did the basketball courts, and we wanted to do a similar thing on the tennis ball courts,” Mayor Gus Calandrino said. “So, as a city, we’ve been talking about it for several years, and when Jars was opening their dispensary in Utica, they asked, ‘What project can we get involved with?’ And we said, ‘Well, this would be a great one because we’re having a hard time finding the money to do it.’”

The project took approximately two months to complete and it’s estimated that the project cost more than $100,000.

“The longest part of it was ordering the material,” Calandrino said. “Once the material was all here, they had it done in like a week, I think.”

During the dedication ceremony, attendees could hear more about the excitement around these new additions to Grant Park from Calandrino, Abro and other Utica city officials as well as officials from other parts of metro Detroit.

“(It’s) Great to see the city of Utica supporting this fantastic project,” Calandrino said. “We’ve already seen residents using it and loving it. We know that the residents of Utica are going to be using it for many years going forward.”

Following the ceremony, attendees enjoyed goody bags from Jars as well as cider and doughnuts.

Jars is considering other projects in the near future, though at this point what those projects might be is up in the air.

“I mean, there’s nothing on the table just yet but we’ve made a commitment of $25,000 a year,” Abro said.

For more information, visit cityofutica.org.