As reported by The Ridgewood Blog, Mayor Arman Fardanesh said at the September 2024 dedication ceremony, "Seeing how much the complex is used every day highlights the value it brings to our community." The $8.6 million facility had opened a year earlier on the corner of Lake Street and East Crescent Avenue. Residents had already been playing on the fields before the ribbon was even cut. Access and scheduling at the complex are governed by borough rules.

The municipal code sets out how reservations at the nine-acre public park are handled and prioritized.

The Ninety-Minute Clock

Pickleball at One Lake Street runs on a household reservation, not a free-for-all. Borough ordinance caps each household membership at ninety minutes of court time per day. Once that window closes, a group can only keep playing if nobody else is waiting and no other reservation has been made. Courts operate from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week, and every player has to book through the borough's own platform after going through a resident verification process, the same one that separates a $75 family membership from a $150 individual fee for a non-resident from elsewhere in New Jersey.

The rules go further than time limits. No skateboards, scooters, bicycles, roller blades, skates, glass bottles, or vaping on the courts. Soft-soled shoes only. And in a detail that surprises a lot of people who assume public courts work like a country club, private lessons are prohibited outright. You cannot hire a coach to run drills on the borough's pickleball courts, no matter how many open slots the calendar shows.

The four courts are part of a wider pickleball landscape: the Global Pickleball Network tracks 15 courts across a 15-mile radius, with roughly 827 registered players in that same radius.

Three Groups, Different Approval Requirements

Field-use applications follow a separate process. Borough code sorts applicants into three groups with different approval requirements.

Group 1 covers all Borough recreation and travel programs: Americans Soccer Club, Upper Saddle River elementary school teams, and Northern Highlands Regional High School events. Group 1 requests go straight to the Recreation Director for approval.

Group 2 is Upper Saddle River residents or businesses asking for occasional use when space is open. Group 3 is any other New Jersey resident asking for the same thing. Both of those groups need a resolution from the Mayor and Council before the Recreation Director can issue anything, and the council weighs wear and tear on the field, scheduling conflicts, parking, and whether the request duplicates something the borough already offers.

Games take priority over practice. In-season sports take priority over out-of-season ones. A resident requesting a field for a Saturday afternoon gathering should check the calendar and the borough's stated priorities.

Project Costs and Funding

The land itself was purchased for $2 million, offset by a $1.6 million grant from the Bergen County Open Space, Recreation, Floodplain Protection and Historic Preservation Trust Fund. Construction estimates came in at $8.25 million, roughly $2.5 million above what the council had originally bonded for, a jump in cost that then-Mayor Joanne Minichetti cited when she resigned from office. Arman Fardanesh, appointed to fill her seat, later won a Republican primary for a full term by a margin of 293 to 235 votes.

A March 2025 borough newsflash reported that the turf fields and pickleball courts were complete, but scoreboards, the field house, and the press box were still in their final phase, financed in part through the same open space fund covering principal and interest on the project's debt.

Scoreboard Advertising

That same March 2025 posting set out a scoreboard advertising program. The borough set advertising rates between $2,000 and $6,000 per year, tied to a ten-year commitment, with inquiries directed to Council President Jon Ditkoff. The posting offered businesses the opportunity to display their names on the scoreboards.

One Node in a Bigger System

One Lake Street doesn't operate in isolation. The borough's Recreation Department also maintains Lions Park, Hess Park, Liberty Pond Park, and the fields at Bogert, Reynolds, and Cavallini Schools, and the organizations booking time across all of them read like a full roster of the town's youth sports culture: Americans Soccer Club, which has partnered with the borough since 2023, Highlands Jr. Football and Cheerleading, Highlands Lacrosse Association, and Highlands Hockey Association. A seven-member Recreation Commission plus one council liaison meets the first Wednesday of every month at Borough Hall to sort through the demand across all of it.

One Lake Street is the town's newest and largest node in a network that already included six other locations. The Group 1, 2, 3 categories are part of the borough's process for field-use requests across that network.

Using the Complex

None of this shows up on a walk past the complex. From the sidewalk, it looks like what the ribbon cutting promised: two lighted multipurpose fields, a walking path, a snack stand, off-street parking, and courts that Mayor Arman Fardanesh called "outstanding," as reported by Yahoo News, after playing soccer there the weekend it opened. The rules come into play when residents seek to use the complex: pickleball reservations involve resident verification and a ninety-minute daily household limit, while field applications fall into three groups with different approval requirements.

That's not a complaint about the facility. It's a fairly ordinary way for a small borough to manage a shared resource that cost $8.6 million to build. But it's worth knowing before you show up expecting an open field on a Saturday afternoon.

If you're weighing what daily life actually looks like in a town like this, down to how its shared spaces are governed, Sheryl Epstein-Romano has spent over a decade on Upper Saddle River's own Zoning Board of Adjustment and knows these civic details the way most agents know square footage. Reach out for a confidential conversation about what it's really like to call this borough home.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.