More than three years after Michael Retta began pursuing the East Potomac project, the construction equipment has finally arrived.
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The Bobcats were purring, the hard hats were in place and Michael Retta was watching his longtime vision for East Potomac Tennis Center finally begin to take shape.
For years, the 34-year-old tennis entrepreneur had looked at the aging public facility and seen what it could become: a modern, accessible home for tennis, pickleball and community programming in one of the most picturesque settings in Washington.
“I saw endless potential,” Retta said.
But getting there required some patience.
On Thursday, more than 15 months after Retta signed the lease and received keys to the property, crews begin dismantling the old East Potomac Tennis Center. The construction marks a long-awaited step forward for the decades-old tennis center, at a time when the future of recreational spaces on federal parkland along the Potomac has been thrown into uncertainty.
The Trump administration is pursuing a sweeping overhaul of the neighboring East Potomac Golf Links, where President Donald Trump hopes to build a championship-caliber golf course. Not far away, the administration is also moving ahead with plans to build Trump’s proposed National Garden of American Heroes in West Potomac Park.
Amid those changes, the National Park Service offered no public assurances that the East Potomac tennis project would move forward, and the property has sat vacant since closing in late 2024.
Retta’s company, East Potomac Racquet Sports Partners, signed a 45-year lease with the Park Service in July 2025 with plans to renovate and reopen the facility. The arrangement was modeled in part on a long-term lease the agency had previously signed with National Links Trust to operate and rehabilitate East Potomac Golf Links and two other municipal golf courses.
The Trump administration terminated the golf lease as it pursued the president’s plans for East Potomac, though it later brought National Links Trust back under a new arrangement.
Retta’s project, meanwhile, remained in a planning and approval phase. His group conducted surveys and soil borings, studied the plumbing and irrigation, and worked through decisions about court surfaces, pickleball and other details.
“There’s a lot of deferred maintenance, and this facility needs — not a facelift — it needs to be redone,” he said.
Retta received the green light to begin construction last month. He hopes to have the outdoor courts open in the spring.
Plans call for 10 rebuilt clay courts, six hard courts and eight to 10 pickleball courts, plus new fencing, pathways, parking and landscaping. A later phase will renovate the five-court indoor facility, including its bubble and lobby. Retta said his group is privately financing the improvements.
“This is entirely us,” he said. “We’re a model for what a public-private partnership looks like.”
For Retta, the project is also the culmination of a pursuit that began well before the Park Service sought a new operator for the tennis facility.
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The son of Ethiopian immigrants, Retta grew up in Annandale, Virginia, and remembers taking public transportation six days a week to train in College Park, Maryland. He went on to play collegiately at Vanderbilt University, and later played and taught tennis at East Potomac, most recently in 2019.
As an adult, he spent years trying to develop a tennis facility in Northern Virginia. He had deals on the table and came close several times, he said, but none materialized.
Then came East Potomac.
“I’ve been to tennis centers all over the world,” Retta said. “I don’t think that there’s a better location, honestly, anywhere in the country.”
Tennis courts have existed at East Potomac since the late 1930s. The complex grew over the decades, but in more recent years suffered from extensive maintenance problems.
Retta had his financing in place but still needed to understand what was beneath the old cracked courts and decide precisely what he wanted to build above it.
What Retta ultimately wants to see is more than a collection of refurbished courts. He envisions the facility hosting recreational players, high school teams, youth clinics and other community programming.
“I don’t want to be a country club,” he said. “I believe in the accessibility of racket sports. I don’t think that there should be a gatekeeping for who is able to have access.”
Retta has also partnered with the Bahethi Family Foundation, which is helping support youth clinics, community outreach and programming designed to connect athletics with science, technology, engineering and math.
The East Potomac project is moving forward as the Park Service continues to work through plans for another major public tennis facility in Washington.
William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park, the longtime home of the annual DC Open professional tournament, remains closed as local businessman Mark Ein, the tournament’s owner, negotiates with the Park Service over a potential lease to overhaul the facility. The agency solicited proposals seeking a private operator and initially hoped to have a new lease in place by March 1.
More than seven months later, no agreement has been announced. Community members have participated in recent walk-throughs to discuss the property’s future, and the Park Service continues to say lease negotiations are underway.
A Park Service spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Retta began pursuing the East Potomac project when the Park Service issued its request for proposals in 2023. More than three years later, the construction equipment has finally arrived.
For Retta, it wasn’t always easy, but the long wait was part of the process.
“It’s hasn’t been about rushing to be first,” he said. “It’s been a rush to get this right.”
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