Whispering Pines Park

Whispering Pines Park is a 37-acre city park at 800 SW Darwin Blvd. in Port St. Lucie, established in 1992, that combines a racquet and paddle center, Skate City, Minsky Gym, lighted ball fields, three pavilions and a large playground.

The City of Port St. Lucie park page also lists a grass volleyball area, a football field, multi-purpose open space, ADA restrooms, parking and free WiFi, and it tags the park as autism friendly (City of Port St. Lucie, Whispering Pines Park Racket and Paddle Center). Its amenities list breaks the athletic space down further: four lighted ball fields, with Fields 1 and 3 listed as 200 baseball fields, Field 2 as a 200 softball field and Field 4 as 300, plus two lighted football fields, the larger 150 x 360 and the smaller 120 x 240 for flag football. Park hours run from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., with a sports light curfew at 9:30 p.m., and the page notes that the park is not a voluntary waste drop-off site.

The size, year and address in the table come from the park page (Whispering Pines Park page, Location and Detailed Amenities); the community park class appears in the park inventory of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan Update (Parks and Recreation Master Plan Update, park inventory) and in the Recreation and Open Space Element, which records Whispering Pines Park as a 37-acre CP site on 800 SW Darwin Boulevard (Recreation and Open Space Element, inventory).

The city lists 24 lighted pickleball courts at the Racquet and Paddle Center, but its own park page gives two different tennis counts: 5 courts plus 1 tournament court in the introduction and 14 tennis courts in the amenities list.

The introduction says the 5 tennis courts, the tournament court and the 24 pickleball courts all have shaded grandstands and lighting, and that the courts are shared by the city's Parks and Recreation Department and nearby Treasure Coast High School; the amenities list describes 14 tennis courts with a 40 x 20 pavilion and refers to the 14 courts at the Whispering Pines Tennis Center (Whispering Pines Park page, introduction and Detailed Amenities). Both figures sit on the same city page. Treasure Coast High School, the court partner, is listed by the school district at 1000 SW Darwin Blvd. (St. Lucie Public Schools, Treasure Coast High profile).

Court rules on the park page require proper tennis attire and shoes, have the center's tennis pro schedule the courts, ask players to limit play to one hour when others are waiting, and bar pets other than trained service animals, bicycles, roller blades and skateboards on the courts (Whispering Pines Park page, Tennis Rules). The same page lists other city-run tennis courts at Lyngate Park, Jessica Clinton Park, Sportsman's Park and Charles E. Ray Park, two lighted courts at each. Its program table for tennis classes still prints a Saturday class dated Sept. 10 to Oct. 8, 2022, and the sign-up note states that the City of Port St. Lucie is not affiliated with the third-party organization collecting the information.

Skate City is a free outdoor roller and in-line skating rink inside Whispering Pines Park, reopened by the city in January 2025 after its old skate park closed to skateboarding in 2010.

A city news release explains that the skate park's features deteriorated and became costly to repair, leading to the 2010 closure, and that roller and in-line skaters later began using the former facility and asked the city to turn the lights on (City of Port St. Lucie news, Skate City ribbon cutting). The Parks and Recreation Department resurfaced the area, which covers roughly 39,000 square feet, and the release states that admission is free and that the city no longer accepts reservations for its use. The release gave its daily hours as 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., the time the lights go off, which matches the 9:30 p.m. sports light curfew on the park page (Whispering Pines Park page, Hours).

The same release notes that the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University chose Port St. Lucie for a neighborhood grant program that funds resident-led revitalization projects in the Whispering Pines neighborhood (Skate City news release, neighborhood grants).

Minsky Gym is the indoor gymnasium inside the park, listed at 8,000 square feet on city web pages and at 11,000 square feet in the Master Plan Update inventory.

The Minsky Gymnasium page describes an 8,000-square-foot gym with two full-sized volleyball courts or one full-sized basketball court, ADA restrooms and free WiFi, open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at 750 S.W. Darwin Blvd., phone (772) 344-4142; it also posts a temporary closure notice for construction and rents space to users 18 and older with requests due at least 15 days ahead (City of Port St. Lucie, Minsky Gymnasium). The Master Plan Update lists the Robert E. Minsky Gym at Whispering Pines with a 1999 date and 11,000 square feet as an indoor center (Master Plan Update, inventory row 37).

The Master Plan Update's building review names the Jaycee Park building and Minsky Gym as the two park buildings in need of improvements, and says both buildings are near the end of their functional life, with improvements up to full renovation to be considered (Master Plan Update, building conditions).

Whispering Pines Park drew 684,317 visits in 2024, the highest count of any park in the Master Plan Update's visitation list, which was built from Placer Labs cell phone data.

The plan lists William McChesney Park second at 601,992 and Sportsman's Park third at 379,046, and it observes that the parks with the highest visitation were those tied to athletic facilities (Master Plan Update, Park Visitation Level of Service). The plan's site review also names Whispering Pines among the parks with high levels of activity and on its list of parks with amenities the plan expects to need replacing within 1 to 3 years.

In the Port St. Lucie Recreation and Open Space Element, a community park is typically at least 15 acres, may be paired with a school, can contain lighted athletic facilities for night play, large playgrounds and a recreation center, and is meant to serve several neighborhoods and the population of a 1 to 3 mile radius (Recreation and Open Space Element, park classifications).

Pavilions can be reserved online or in person at the PSL Community Center, while sport courts and athletic fields are booked only in person there; at community parks such as Whispering Pines, fields and pavilions may be reserved up to 90 days ahead.

The city's Reservations and Rentals page sets a 3-hour minimum of $20.28 before tax, $21.70 with tax, for a group pavilion and $11.36, or $12.16 with tax, for a family pavilion, with each additional hour at $10.42 before tax (City of Port St. Lucie, Reservations and Rentals). Weekday field reservations must be made three days before the date, and weekend reservations before 8 p.m. on the prior Wednesday. The same page lists Whispering Pines among the parks where the city lines baseball and softball fields for $10.56 before tax and soccer, football and similar fields for $64.74 before tax.

On the park side, the amenities list describes a 35 x 25 pavilion next to the playground with lights, electricity, water, eight tables and one large grill, and two 16 x 16 family pavilions with a table and a small grill each (Whispering Pines Park page, pavilions).

Last verified: October 22, 2026, against the Whispering Pines park page, the Minsky Gymnasium page, the Reservations and Rentals rate tables, the Skate City release, both city parks plans and the Treasure Coast High profile, each re-read that morning.