Beach Volleyball in Fort Wayne: Urban Beaches

The Good City blog made a post about an urban beach in Paris. The idea is of slowing things down in the urban core, whether it be cars or people and their pollution, and enjoying life on the "beach". It's based on an article from here. I found my own article on the imported Paris beach here. It says they brought in 3000 tons of sand. It also notes that much of the sand gets taken up by volleyball courts.

World Tour, Stavanger Paris 2007

It sounds like the Paris beach isn't quite as big as I envisioned it after finding the second article. It's only 5 times as much sand as was brought into River City here in Fort Wayne. And much less than at Tampa Bay's Club V. The place that the River City Beach was modeled after was a 3 court facility with multi-level decks known as Baxter Jacks (formerly known as the Brewery) in Downtown Louisville. As I understand it in the summer they now fill a backstreet with sand in the summer and have a fourth court. The AVP has events in Louisville, which is a midwestern hotbed for beach volleyball.

Even though the current beach at River City is surrounded by old industrial buildings it still has a "happiness" effect. By throwing up a few palm trees, some murals and beach music, it's a mini-vacation land... maybe not in Downtown Fort Wayne but close enough. There was also a downtown beach blast event last year where we cooperated with the D.I.D. and brought in 30 of the 31 teams, but it suffered from bad weather.

Moving quality sand is an even more expensive proposition now more than ever. I heard the Pinheads Entertainment Complex in Fishers spent $60000 for sand for 2 courts a couple of years ago.

Here are more pictures from around the world from my facebook group "Around the World Beach Volleyball."