Thanks to a $2.5 million loan from Volusia County, the city of Holly Hill will now be home to Florida's largest pickleball center on the state's east coast.

The funds will allow Pictona to double its courts and build 1,200 seats for championship events that will also serve as a venue for concerts and performances hosted by the city.

“My wife started playing pickleball in 2012,” explained Pictona Founder Rainer Martens.

Once Martens was introduced to the game by his wife in 2015, he instantly knew he was hooked.

His entire life has been dedicated to physical fitness, so the sport falls right in line with his passion.

Before conquering pickleball, he was a softball enthusiast.

Before moving to Florida, he served as a professor of sports psychology at the University of Illinois and was a sports psychologist for the Winter Olympic ski team in 1984.

“I didn’t have a master plan of this entire thing,” said Martens. “It just sort of kept evolving.”

Pickleball is another way of building on his career and doing what he loves.

His passion for the sport runs so deep that he and his wife decided to invest in a world-class facility. That’s how Pictona was born two years ago.

“People come here and they say, man, this is the best place we’ve ever been to play pickleball. That’s very rewarding to us.”

With their hefty new grant from the county, Martens believes the sport is rapidly evolving.

Because of what they’ve already done, USA Pickleball has selected the venue to host one of their major tournaments later this year in December. The expansion project will be completed two months prior.

“And in the new facility we’re building we’re adding another five courts that are under cover.”

With the expansion already under work, Martens is happy to see all the growth in pickleball.

It’s a game he feels is easy to learn and it’s one of the reasons he thinks so many people are starting to pick up a racket.

Most of all, it’s a fun sport and his favorite part of it all is winning.

“That doesn’t happen very often, but when I beat somebody, I really feel good,” Martens joked.

Along with the grant to Pictona, seven other projects in Volusia County will divide the remaining $1.3 million dollars designated for environmental, cultural, historic, and outdoor projects. 

That includes a new veteran's memorial amphitheater in Daytona Beach.