Union Padel Club

Union Padel Club is padel inside Chicago, which in this metro is a shorter list than it sounds: of the five venues a host can book here, three are 20 to 35 miles north in Glenview, Highland Park and Mundelein. Union is at 207 N Paulina, in West Town on the edge of the West Loop, and calls itself Chicago's premier indoor padel club. The amenities read like a members' club that happens to have courts: saunas and plunge pools, a co-working lounge with high-speed Wi-Fi and proper desks, a bar called LaBarra pouring cocktails and cold-pressed juices, a private game room, and social lounges you can hire.

It is also the one club in the city that says out loud how it charges. Under its reservation table, in capitals, is the line "PRICE PER PERSON PER HOUR": $35 at peak hours and $30 off-peak for a non-member, $28 and $20 for a Union Core member, $21 and $10 for Union Elite. That transparency is welcome and it makes the comparison uncomfortable, because four non-members on a court for a peak hour is $140 and off-peak is $120 — against $100 for the same court-hour at Padel Clube, Club Pickle and Proximo's regular rate. Union is the most expensive court-hour in the metro and prints the smallest number to get there. Off-peak, if your group can play at off-peak times, closes most of the gap.

The membership arithmetic is unusually easy to check because both sides are published. Core costs $110 a month and saves a non-member $10 an hour off-peak or $7 at peak, so it pays for itself at roughly eleven off-peak hours a month, or sixteen peak ones. Elite costs $250 and saves $20 off-peak, breaking even near twelve and a half hours. Unlimited Core is $450 with a three-month minimum. If you play once a week you are better off paying as you go; twice a week off-peak and Core is already cheaper than not having it.

The court count is five, and the way the club stands behind that number is worth explaining. Union's own copy never states it. Its press page, however, links the Chicago Sun-Times under the headline "Union Padel Club opens with five courts on the Near West Side" — a club choosing to publish a headline about itself is close to saying it — and a LinkedIn post from principal Peter Goldman gives the same figure. The club is indoor by its own description. Alongside the Sun-Times, its press page carries segments from WGN, CBS Chicago and FOX 32, and a Chicago Booth piece on the sport's arrival in the US.

Its own booking tenant is the weaker source here, and that is unusual enough to flag: the PlayByPoint side carries stale programming from earlier in the year and placeholder membership pricing that does not match the site. Where the two disagree, the club's own pages are the ones to trust, and the rate table above is from them.

One address correction, because the wrong one circulates. 207 N Paulina St is right — it matches the club's own contact details, its business license and Google Maps. 219 N Paulina appears in a July 2024 Cushman & Wakefield leasing release from before the club opened and has been copied around since. If a directory sends you to 219, you are a building along.

The club's own answer to the hardest part of padel is a WhatsApp group. Its site points new players at a community "to organize games, discover the latest programming, and stay connected", and its beginners' FAQ answers "do I need four players to book a court?" with "not necessarily" and a concierge number. That is the honest state of padel in a new city: the courts exist, the fourth player is the problem, and clubs are solving it in group chats. Union has a concierge on WhatsApp for exactly that, and non-members can book courts, programming and clinics without joining.

Union publishes no opening hours on its own site — peak and off-peak are priced but not defined — so times come from the booking system. A free intro session was running over the summer with the code INTRO2PADEL, which is the cheapest way to find out whether your group takes to the sport.

Five courts seat twenty players a round, with twenty-six the sensible ceiling and six resting each round.

An hour's booking is about 50 minutes of play after warm-up and changeovers, which is six rounds to 21 points. That is enough for a Mexicano leaderboard to mean something, and short of a full Americano rotation at twenty — play a slice.

Price by head, and price off-peak. Twenty non-members for a peak hour is $700; the same twenty off-peak is $600. Twenty Core members off-peak is $400. The gap between peak and off-peak is bigger here than the gap between clubs.

If you are short of players, the club runs a WhatsApp community and a concierge for matchmaking, and its FAQ is explicit that you do not need four to book.