A Malco theater in Bartlett that closed late last year is getting an adaptive reuse.

John and Leslie Daniel are bringing Bluff City Pickleball to what was previously the Malco Bartlett Cinema, which first opened in 1989 as an anchor for the Malco Plaza Shopping Center on Bartlett Boulevard.

John Daniel spent a year at Harvard last year on a fellowship studying how to build social enterprises.

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“Ours is a social enterprise, meaning that our goal here is not primarily profitability but to do something really good for the community,” he said. “We just thought this was a great site, and this project will help to keep that plaza thriving.”

Daniel, who worked as an executive for First Horizon for 16 years, is a heart transplant recipient, and his wife is a breast cancer survivor.

“We’re just blessed to be alive, and we wanted to do something good with the time that we’ve got,” he said.

The couple, who live downtown at the Artesian high-rise, caught the pickleball bug a few years ago when the tennis courts at the Artesian were converted to pickleball configuration.

“We have about 20 residents who play pickleball every weekend and sometimes on the weekdays,” said Daniel, who began scouting locations all over the Mid-South last August.

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In March he received a call from Malco and the Lightman family about their single-purpose facility in Bartlett. “Because 0f the way it is constructed as a single-purpose facility, it’s really hard to turn it into anything, but we had the idea for a pickleball club,” Daniel said.

Under their Bluff City Athletics LLC banner, Bluff City Pickleball will offer open and league play, tournaments, lessons, fundraising events, corporate events and birthday parties.

Work is underway to renovate the 27,000-square-foot facility.

The theater’s 10 auditoriums will be converted into eight pickleball courts, one smaller practice court, and an exercise studio for stretching and warming up. A clubhouse will go in on the mezzanine, which was previously used for the movie projectors, and new air conditioning and a new roof will be installed.

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The large lobby area will be turned into a multi-purpose reception and cafe space, and the movie theme will remain with the individual pickleball courts named after famous movies like Top Gun and Star Wars.

The couple, who are funding the more than $500,000 needed for the project themselves, hope to have everything running by the end of the year.

“I am very excited to see this project come to Bartlett Station,” said Glen Mullins, chairman of the Bartlett Station Commission. “This pickleball concept could be a foundation for us to build a family-friendly, young people-friendly, senior people-friendly destination for Bartlett Station.”

Bartlett Mayor David Parsons is happy to see one of the city’s larger available commercial spaces find a new tenant.

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“I think this is a perfect use of that site,” Parsons said. “We’re really trying to revitalize the Bartlett Station area, and the Daniels are passionate about bringing us a family-friendly and health-oriented destination.”

Daniel notes that Bluff City Pickleball will be within a 15-minute drive from Midtown or East Memphis, making it accessible for many that want to play growing sport.

Pickleball is growing in popularity locally and across the U.S., and new businesses are springing up, including 901 Pickleball planned in Collierville.