Inside the Creative Minds Behind Ballers in Fishtown
David Gutstadt and Amanda Potter are changing the game for luxury sport and social clubs from Philly to L.A.
Good City Studio’s Amanda Potter and David Gutstadt at Ballers / Photograph by Rebecca McAlpin
When David Gutstadt first toured the Fishtown property that would become Ballers in 2019, it was clear to him that it was special — a beaux arts gem built by the Philadelphia Electric Company in the 1920s, with 75-foot vaulted ceilings and a massive footprint. He was wowed. But it would take three years before the racket-sports concept came to life. “This is a case of the space inspiring the idea rather than the idea inspiring the space,” says Gutstadt, co-founder and co-CEO — with Amanda Potter, who also serves as chief creative officer — of Good City Studio, their hospitality-centric design and development firm. The club debuted in September, with courts for pickleball, padel, and squash plus a golf simulator, a putting green, and a recovery lounge. (GCS also operates out of Ballers.)
Designing the project wasn’t that daunting, says Potter. “The space is so majestic, but when we overlaid the scale of a court onto the floor plan, it became obvious where padel and pickleball would go,” she says. “The club almost laid itself out.”
The partners in business (both alums of New York’s Equinox Group) and life (they were hitched at Ballers last year) settled on a modern-meets-industrial aesthetic and tapped local graffiti artists to cover the walls in original works. It’s the same slick style you see at Fitler Club — Gutstadt is the founder; Potter was the design lead — and the Sporting Club at the Bellevue Hotel, another GCS undertaking completed in 2023. (GCS has collaborated on 60 projects, though Fitler Club and Ballers are the two they’ve taken from start to finish.) With celeb investors like Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey backing Ballers, Gutstadt and Potter have plans for three new locations in Boston, Los Angeles, and Miami this year. (Nothing else for Philly — yet.) He forms the concept, she creates the mood board, and their vision comes to fruition. “We’re almost always on the same page,” says Potter. “I think we argued over the color of the tile in the Ballers locker rooms, but that was about it.”
Published as “Net Gains” in the March 2026 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
