Park & Recreation’s first public meeting for Claxton Field’s action sports park and pickleball courts on May 21 encouraged Needham residents to share feedback on design schematics. Representatives from engineering firm Weston & Sampson and action sports experts Pillar Design Studios presented the conceptual designs.
Pickleball will be located along Central Avenue, and the action park in the quarry east of softball fields, with 23 parking spaces added to the existing lot. The current design features five pickleball courts surrounded by a 10-ft. vinyl chainlink fence, screened from the road by a landscape berm and tree plantings. A sound study is also being conducted.
Two designs with “all wheels” access are being considered for the action park. The first, lower-cost design is a beginner-friendly, back-and-forth lane style built at grade, featuring flats and street-oriented elements (manual pads, ledges, rails, straight boxes, curved boxes, slappy curves, China banks), with a nearby pump track. The second, above-grade design offers a higher technical level, with a circular design encouraging speed and transitions (stair sets, banked ledges, big flip pyramid, flat bars, step-ups, gaps, fun boxes), but no pump track. Both designs feature shade structures and handicap parking spaces. Skaters in the audience preferred the second design, but requested a few more technical elements.
Planners hope to reach consensus around designs by mid-summer. These will be presented in another community forum before moving to the final design stage and board approvals. Town Meeting will vote on the action park and pickleball courts in May 2027. In the interim, residents at the meeting who are “heavy users” were encouraged to join a working group for one of the two projects.
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