Austin Country Club filed 13 separate building permits on a single day this month — September 15, 2026 — for a wave of new racquet-sports construction that includes padel courts, pickleball courts under sail-shade canopies, a clay tennis expansion, and a parking garage with a full tennis court built on its roof. According to ATX Things' review of city permit records, the concept isn't new: the same "tennis court on roof" idea shows up in the club's own site-plan filings from 2018. Nearly eight years later, it's finally under construction.
What did Austin Country Club just file permits for?
On September 15, the city of Austin issued 13 new-construction building permits at 4408 Long Champ Dr., the club's address on the south bank of Lake Austin near the Pennybacker Bridge. Every permit lists the same contractor, Rogers-O'Brien Construction, and the same $1 million valuation. According to city permit records, the work covers:
| Permit | Scope | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-121051 BP | New dining building | $1.0M |
| 2026-121056 BP | New pergola on the dining deck | $1.0M |
| 2026-121052 BP | New fitness building | $1.0M |
| 2026-121055 BP | Renovated youth building | $1.0M |
| 2026-121059 BP | New tennis court area | $1.0M |
| 2026-121060 BP | New clay tennis court area | $1.0M |
| 2026-121061 BP | New padel court area | $1.0M |
| 2026-121058 BP | New pickleball courts with sail-shade structures | $1.0M |
| 2026-121054 BP | Structured parking with a tennis court on top | $1.0M |
| 2026-121062 / 121065 / 121066 / 121064 BP | Four retaining walls around the new courts and dining deck | $1.0M each |
Every one of these 13 permits carries an identical $1 million valuation — almost certainly a standard filing threshold for this type of commercial permit review, not a line-item construction budget for each structure. Treat the $1M figures as what the permits say, not as 13 individually-priced buildings; ATX Things could not verify a true itemized project cost.
That's a combined face value of at least $13 million in filings from a single day, on top of a $9 million marina overhaul the club completed in 2024–25 and a $1.4 million clubhouse renovation from 2015 — a pattern of steady, well-funded reinvestment at one of the state's oldest private clubs.
Why does a parking garage have tennis courts on the roof?
It sounds like an Austin-specific joke about parking scarcity, but the pairing goes back further than this year. A 2018 city site-plan filing for Austin Country Club — case SP-2018-0115C, since expired — describes a five-phase expansion "to include expansion of clubhouse, fitness center and golf pro shop with new construction of a restaurant and parking garage with tennis court on roof." That 2018 application lapsed after six weeks without moving forward. The idea didn't die; it just sat in the club's long-range plans until this September's permits started turning it into concrete and asphalt.
A separate, broader site-plan case for the club — filed with the city's Site Plan Commission in June 2021 and still listed as "Pending" — covers the current consolidated build-out. It's a different filing from a smaller, already-approved 2024 site plan (SP-2024-0352B) that covered a new maintenance building and, in January 2026, the demolition of an existing "Outdoor Sports and Rec" structure the city's own permit dates to 1982. That demolition — handled by a different contractor, Capital Constructors Group — cleared roughly 11,000 square feet of the old site months before Rogers-O'Brien's September crews broke ground on what's replacing it.
What's driving the padel and pickleball rush?
Austin Country Club currently has 10 tennis courts — 8 hard, 2 har-tru clay — according to the club's own website, with no padel or pickleball courts listed. That makes this expansion a genuine first for the club, not a replacement of existing amenities, and it's arriving right as both sports are having a national moment.
Padel and pickleball aren't the same game. Pickleball is played on a badminton-sized court with paddles and a plastic ball, closer to a scaled-down tennis match. Padel is played in an enclosed glass-and-mesh court — similar to the ones rendered above — where the walls are in play, more like a squash-tennis hybrid. Austin Country Club's permits add both, separately.
Pickleball participation grew 223% nationally between 2020 and 2024, making it the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. for three consecutive years, and an estimated 24.3 million Americans played it in 2025. Padel is smaller in the U.S. but growing fast and concentrated specifically in Texas, Florida and California, according to a January 2026 private-club industry report from Private Club Marketing that tracked the trend across more than 1,200 clubs. Racquet-sport courts, the same report notes, generate roughly four times the revenue per square foot of a standard tennis court — a business case private clubs nationally are acting on at once.
Austin Country Club isn't even the only Hill Country club doing this in 2026. Across town, River Place Country Club has its own $7-million-plus "transformation" underway, according to the club's own published project page, adding padel and pickleball courts alongside a new two-story fitness center and a reworked clubhouse. Neither club has issued a public announcement about its racquet-sports build-out — both projects surfaced here through public permit and project records, not a press release.
A club that's hosted major golf — and just lost it
Austin Country Club has been at this Long Champ Drive site since 1984, when it relocated from a Riverside Drive course (1949–1984) that produced major champions Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite under legendary teaching pro Harvey Penick. The current Pete Dye-designed course hosted the WGC Match Play Championship from 2016 through the event's final edition in 2023 — a run one Google reviewer summed up firsthand: "The Dell Match Play championship is always a fun venue... It's my understanding the ACC will not be the venue anymore after this year." The club carries a 4.6-star rating from 503 Google reviews as of this week, with recent reviewers praising the grounds and service for weddings and private events far more often than golf.
Losing an annual PGA Tour stop is exactly the kind of pressure that pushes a legacy club to diversify what it offers members — and a coordinated racquet-sports build-out, arriving three years after Match Play left, tracks with that read, even though nothing in the club's own public materials states a cause and effect.
What locals should know
- You can't just show up. Austin Country Club's membership is by invitation only, per the club's own site — there's no walk-in access, tee times, or court rentals for the public.
- 13 permits, one address, one day — 2026-09-15, all under contractor Rogers-O'Brien Construction, all at 4408 Long Champ Dr.
- The "$1M" figures are a permit-filing convention, not a real budget line per building — treat the true total cost as unknown, likely higher.
- Padel and pickleball are brand new here — the club's existing 10 tennis courts don't currently include either.
- The tennis-on-a-parking-garage idea is nearly eight years old — first described in a 2018 city filing, only now under construction.
Daily permit data from City of Austin
FAQ
Is Austin Country Club open to the public? No. It's a private, invitation-only club at 4408 Long Champ Dr. in Austin, and the courts and dining facilities described in these permits are for members and their guests only.
What exactly is being built? Per city permits issued September 15, 2026: a new dining building with a pergola, a renovated youth building, a new fitness building, new tennis and clay-tennis courts, new padel courts, new pickleball courts with sail-shade structures, four retaining walls, and a parking structure with a tennis court built on its roof.
How much is the project actually costing? The 13 permits carry a combined face value of at least $13 million, but each lists an identical $1 million valuation — a permitting convention, not a verified line-item budget. The real total cost isn't public.
Has Austin Country Club said anything publicly about this? No. This reporting is based entirely on city of Austin permit records and historical site-plan filings; the club has not issued a public announcement about the padel, pickleball, or rooftop tennis construction.
Is any other Austin club doing something similar? Yes — River Place Country Club is in the middle of its own $7-million-plus renovation this year, including new padel and pickleball courts, per the club's own published project updates.
We're watching the city's Site Plan Commission for the still-pending consolidated case covering this address — follow @austintexasthings for what surfaces next. For more first-hand permit and project data on what's being built across Austin, see our September Development Report and browse the underlying records yourself at zabalist.com/permits.
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