CHALLENGE
We received a phone call about an office/warehouse we were marketing on Dairy Ashford near W. Airport. The caller said that he wanted to start a badminton facility and needed at least 25,000 sf, high ceilings, air conditioning, plenty of parking, minimal columns with some street exposure and in the southwest quadrant of the Houston MSA. Our response to his inquiry was "this is Texas. We play football, basketball and baseball." We couldn't figure out who would need such a facility. We later found out that badminton was a big sport on both the east and west coasts of the US mainly by the Asian community but not in Houston. The summertime temperature and humidity were not conducive for this sport to be played outdoors.

STRATEGY
For about 2 months we searched for a building that might work for this use. The buildings we found had some of the requirements that were needed but none had them all. The building was a specific use type and probably a school gymnasium would have worked but there weren't any available. We gave up on the idea of finding an existing building and decided to go the design/build route.

RESULTS
We purchased a tract of land on W. Airport in Stafford that was about the right size for a 25,000 SF building with sufficient parking. We then met with a company that specializes in construction of large warehouse type buildings but this builder, nor any of the other builders in Houston had any experience with a badminton facility. However, the client and the design/builder worked closely on its design. The final product was a huge success and not only is it extremely successful as a badminton facility but is flexible for pickleball use, which has become very popular.