– The Ivy Group helped their client (California Badminton Academy) successfully lease a commercial indoor recreational property by obtaining from the City of Fremont a Conditional Use Permit (“CUP”) in an industrial zone;
– The Ivy Group helped the client refine the business plan to address traffic and safety concerns, as well as parking requirements, among others;
– The Ivy Group’s CEO Tim Vi Tran, SIOR, CCIM met with then Mayor of Fremont to get his buy in on the project;
– Thy Ivy Group negotiated with the Landlord to relocate a large transformer from the floor space, and secured a 10-year lease with a 5-year renewal.
– The Bay Area’s largest indoor badminton facility (2019);
– A win-win-win-win—for the client, the landlord, the community, and the city, with immediate economic and social benefits for Fremont and local businesses;
– The success of this transaction led the Ivy Group to the next representation of another indoor recreation property buyer, Hoopsphere, a basketball program in Fremont;
– These two recreational property representations have set precedent that enabled easier future recreational property developments. They also have established the Ivy Group as an expert in the niche of “indoor recreational property” (or “place of assembly”) of commercial real estate property transactions.
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In 2018, California Badminton Academy’s founder—a former Olympic-level player with a lifelong dream of opening her own facility—set her sights on creating the Bay Area’s largest indoor badminton venue. She needed a space in Fremont with high ceilings, affordability, and enough square footage to accommodate multiple courts. Her vision: to transform a warehouse into a premier destination for training young athletes, hosting tournaments, and building community around this sport.
The choice of Fremont was deliberate—recognizing the area’s large Asian population (since badminton is a popular sport in Asia), strong demographics and tapestry outlook, high youth sports participation, and absence of competing facilities. Their research proved right later: demand was strong from day one.
However, the type of recreational property she envisioned came with significant hurdles. Fremont’s industrial zones were designed for distribution and manufacturing uses, and the intended property sat mere hundreds of feet from the NUMMI (now Tesla) plant—raising serious safety, zoning, and traffic concerns.
That’s where the Ivy Group came in, to tackle these specific issues head on:
Tim Vi Tran, SIOR, CCIM, CEO of the Ivy Group, stated: “While many brokers might have walked away from the complexity, we saw it through from beginning to the end—because we shared our client’s belief in the vision and understood its potential impact.”
“Our work began with a deep investigative search to identify properties that met the client’s strict requirements: warehouse construction, at least 27-foot ceilings, Fremont location, and zoning flexibility. Out of hundreds of industrial listings, we identified one viable candidate”, said Tim.
From there, the Ivy Group’s strategies unfolded, step by step, as Tim summarized below:
The CUP process that might normally take 6 months stretched into a full year due to the city’s learning curve with this first-of-its-kind industrial zone recreational property request. “We worked as an extension of our client’s team—drafting a detailed business plan, coordinating with architects, and aligning all stakeholders throughout our client’s property leasing process”, Tim continued.
“Above and beyond the required paperwork, we explained the community value in what we submitted to the City of Fremont”:
As remarkable as the property transformation, is the entrepreneurial spirit of the owner of the California Badminton Academy:
In 2019, California Badminton Academy opened as the largest indoor badminton facility in the Bay Area at that time. The impact was immediate:
“Our success in this project established us as a go-to resource for indoor recreational property transactions. Soon after, HoopSphere Basketball Academy approached us for help securing their own Fremont facility”, said Tim.
From CUP to rezoning and ZAP: Thanks to the precedent set by the Badminton Academy, and along with the city’s long term vision for the area, the city rezoned the district into the Warm Springs Innovation District, making indoor recreation a permitted use “by right.” This eliminated the need for a CUP—replacing it with a simpler Zoning Administrative Permit (ZAP) process—and reduced approval timelines significantly.
“Rezoning and simpler permitting via a Zoning Administrative Permit (ZAP) paved the way for our next recreational property client HoopSphere’s basketball facility purchase. In each case, zoning and parking remained the two biggest hurdles—and our front-loaded investigative work saved both clients from wasting time on incompatible properties,” Tim recalled with great satisfaction.
Aftereffects & Replication – Both the Badminton Academy and Hoopsphere have established a model for future conversions from industrial warehouses to recreational properties such as gymnastics, baseball batting cages, swimming schools, etc.
This project demonstrates that leasing a recreational property in a nontraditional industrial zone can be done—but it takes:
When you need to sell, buy, or lease a commercial space, the Ivy Group is ready to help you reach your goals with more than 100 years of combined experience and expertise in real estate, investment, technology and engineering. Contact us with your next real estate needs.
Copyright ©️ 2025 by Tim Vi Tran, SIOR, CCIM. All rights reserved.
