Padel club swinging into former Great Divide Brewing Co. building

Elliot Carnello is ready to be the new ace of Denver’s racquet sports scene.

The co-founder and CEO of Ace Padel is set to bring his luxury padel club to 1812 35th St., the former home of the Great Divide Brewing Co. in RiNo.

The 30-year-old, who lives in Miami, Florida, and founded the business alongside his father, Peter, expects Ace will start serving in the third quarter.

“We see this space in Denver being very exciting in the sense that it’s a younger, active demographic,” the Swedish native said.

The space will have five indoor courts and three outdoor courts across 26,000 square feet. It’ll also have men’s and women’s locker rooms with saunas and cold plunges. There will be lounges and a restaurant serving light bites alongside beer and wine.

Carnello said Ace will have a membership program but also will accept walk-ins. He declined to discuss pricing but called it a luxury club. Members will get preferred booking and access to certain amenities and events, he said.

“Equinox is someone that we’ve gotten a lot of inspiration from,” he said, noting the brand’s hospitality and community-driven approach as things Ace will emulate.

“But we don’t believe in closing it off,” he added. “We want to grow (padel) as much as we can and are always happy when other people can do the same.”

Padel combines elements of tennis and squash, with the walls part of the game. Carnello, a former tennis player at the University of Southern California who later played padel professionally with the San Diego Stingrays, said the sport is between pickleball and tennis in difficulty.

Carnello has been spearheading padel tournaments around the country over the past several years and said its dynamic and “cool” factor have helped it grow recently in the United States. A key part of Ace, he added, will be clinics and a youth training academy.

“Padel is just hard enough but not easy enough where it’s fun for any level,” he said. “We joke that padel is chess, and pickleball is checkers.”

Great Divide called the building home from 2015 through this past June, when it closed in conjunction with the brewery’s sale to the recently formed Wilding Brands. It had a bar and also packaged its product there.

The building is owned by local developer McWhinney, which bought the land from Great Divide in separate deals in 2019 and 2021. Carnello said he got connected with the Denver firm through a private padel court Ace built at a McWhinney-owned hotel in Southern California.

He and Ace approached McWhinney about the Denver deal, he said. Ace is leasing the building.

Carnello initially aimed to open clubs in Scandinavia, but decided against it since the U.S. market was more open to growth. He said he’s been at the forefront of the stateside padel scene since the early 2020s and has constructed around 50 private courts since then.

“Coming from Scandinavia, we saw the market explode over there because there were so many of this style of shell with tall ceilings and concrete already present,” Carnello said. “You can put together a very advanced concept here.”

Ace’s first full-scale club will open in the second quarter this year in Miami. Carnello said he and his team bought the dirt there and are building it in a similar fashion to the future Denver site, though canopied outdoor courts will be the main star there versus the indoor ones in RiNo.

Ace also has clubs planned in Los Angeles, California, and Dallas, Texas, for this year and early next.

Carnello described Ace build-outs as a joint venture with Florida-based Aventura Asset Management. He said the Denver location will have local investors, although he didn’t name names.

“It’s very important to tap into the local community at all stages,” Carnello said. “Getting key people in the city excited about this, whether investment or ambassadorship, we think will drive traffic to the sport in general.”