As Beaver Meadow looks to clubhouse rebuild, debate over space’s use heats up
Published: 07-01-2023 5:04 PM |
From a distance, everything appears as you’d expect at a golf course on a summer afternoon: golf carts zip around the paths, people gather for a retirement party in the clubhouse and a golf outing concludes under a tent with food, drinks and lots of chatting.
Zoom in closer at Beaver Meadow Golf Course and a few oddities stand out: The parking lot is so jammed that parked golf carts block some of the accessible parking spaces; the fence around the exterior patio – half an octagon in shape – has lost most of its pickets, and rope is used as a replacement; along the bottom exterior of the building, there’s moss, mold and even some small holes.
But rather than repair these issues, the city of Concord wants to tear it down and start anew. Those who have been advocating for a new clubhouse say the existing one, built in 1966, wasn’t meant to accommodate its current uses. Restaurant space is cramped, the pro shop and bar host golf simulators in the winter and there’s no space for skis or skates for those who like to utilize the facility when there’s snow.
As part of the annual budget process, the City Council has taken the first steps toward a total overhaul of the space.
On Dec. 1 of last year, Concord Mayor Jim Bouley submitted a proposal for the creation of the Ad-Hoc Beaver Meadow Building Committee. Though City Council rules stipulate that 15 days are required before the Council approves nominations for committees to allow ample time for their consideration, Bouley asked for the rules to be suspended so the nominees could be confirmed at the council meeting on Dec. 12.
The three-day difference might not seem like a big deal, but it signals a degree of urgency to accelerate the project.
City councilors, including Ward Three’s Jennifer Kretovic, who is a member of the Golf Course Building Committee, see this project as a necessity for the value it brings to the community, both financially and as a shared community space.
In her eyes, it’s less about creating a better facility for just the cohort of golfers who play at the club. It’s about enhancing the space for wider community use, which it wasn’t specifically designed for nearly six decades ago.
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“The building’s falling down,” said Kretovic, an avid golfer who has been a member at Beaver Meadow for roughly the last 25 years. “This is the northwest Concord community center. … We really need as a community to consider that diversified source of funding that we don’t have today.”
The proposals for the complete rebuild of the clubhouse include improvements that will surely please golfers, but it could also expand the offerings for non-golfers and add ways to bring in more revenue for the city.
According to the city’s proposal – one that’s yet to be finalized – the rebuilt clubhouse would add a third and fourth golf simulator. They’d also enlarge the pro shop, add a second-floor office space leased to the New Hampshire Golf Association (NHGA), a larger restaurant with a larger kitchen, a banquet room, storage space for skis and skates and more space to hold municipal elections, as well as improved accessibility and energy efficiency.
In the city of Concord’s budget proposal for the 2024 fiscal year, it lists a $60,000 bond for 2025 funded through the golf fund and $4.5 million bond for eventual construction once plans are finalized. The $4.5 million is simply a placeholder, according to Deputy City Manager of Finance Brian LeBrun, since the final cost has not yet been determined.
The investment could bring its positives. In addition to becoming more accessible and energy-efficient (the building currently has no insulation, Kretovic said), the bigger kitchen space would allow Beaver Meadow to lease the restaurant to an outside company.
It could also become a more hospitable location for weddings, retirement parties, baby showers and other social events. Adding two more golf simulators and providing a separate space for them would allow the pro shop (which is estimated to bring in over $200,000 in revenue for FY 2023) to stay open during the winter. A lease signed with the NHGA for office space would provide an additional revenue source.
“If the city were to do a new clubhouse, it would never be a facility just for the golf operations anymore,” Kretovic said. “We don’t compete with businesses in the city, so we would not be operating a restaurant and a banquet facility out of here. We would be having someone else leasing that operation from us.
“That means it’s revenue to the city. We don’t have the expenses of the operation of the food, the alcohol or anything like that.”
While the clubhouse might not serve as competition for businesses in the city, Beaver Meadow does compete against other courses for golfers. For the 2023 season, if an adult wanted to play 18 holes at Beaver Meadow on a Saturday with a cart, it would cost $71. In the same situation at Loudon Country Club, it would cost $79; at Pembroke Pines, the cost is $70; at Canterbury Woods, the cost is $85. Beaver Meadow charges non-Concord residents the same rate as residents of the city even though tax money has been used in the past to support course expenses.
While open to the public, Loudon, Pembroke and Canterbury Woods are not municipally owned, and as private businesses they don’t have the backing of taxpayers if their revenues fall short of expenses. Beaver Meadow and Derryfield Country Club in Manchester are two municipally owned courses in the state; Bethlehem Country Club was previously owned by the town before being taken over by private ownership in 2020.
On the surface, the most obvious hesitancies with the clubhouse project are twofold: how it’s funded and how it’s being prioritized over other city projects that also need work, said City Councilor Stacey Brown, who represents Ward Five.
Brown, who was elected in 2021 and is not a member of Beaver Meadow, has repeatedly voiced concerns about the project.
First, $4.5 million or whatever the final cost winds up being is no small investment. The city’s budget states that “funding is contingent upon sufficient net operating revenues within the Golf Enterprise Fund to support capital investments, or financial support from the City’s General Fund.”
In other words, the cost could be funded through the golf course’s revenues, but it’s also possible that money is pulled from the city’s general fund, especially if Beaver Meadow’s revenues were to fall.
Would that mean some of that money comes from taxpayers?
“It is possible, sure,” LeBrun, the deputy city finance manager said.
Ultimately, the City Council has the final say on which funds the money is pulled from and if a tax rate increase would be necessary to help pay for the project. If, hypothetically, the final cost were $4.5 million, the city doesn’t need to raise that money right away; the bond would be paid back over a 20-year period, along with interest.
As Brown explained, other city projects also need funding: a new police station, a new fire station, park improvements and Memorial Field upgrades, among others. Perhaps it’d be a better use of funds to address these other locations first, she says.
“We have a lot of big-ticket items that have a broader community appeal,” she said. “I don’t see the public clamoring for a new clubhouse.”
But, as Kretovic argued, Beaver Meadow generates more revenue for the city than those other spaces. In 2022, the golf course brought in over $1.5 million. After roughly $1.2 million in expenses, that meant a profit of over $300,000.
That hasn’t always been the case, however. From fiscal years 2014 through 2019, Beaver Meadow averaged a net loss of about $5,000 per year. Since the pandemic, golf interest has soared. That might continue; it might not.
Concerns over spending that much money in a space that hasn’t previously been accessible to all are valid, which is why Brown would like to see more creative thinking.
“There are so many different ways to creatively use the space that people could enjoy. I don’t think it should be golf all the time when it’s nice out,” she said. “There’s disc golf; there are drive-in movies. I’ve been looking up how other municipalities are using their courses, and they’re creative and they’re listening to the community to hear what the community wants and needs. That’s not happening here.”
The committee did hold a public hearing in the spring, where proponents of golf and cross country skiing, as well as the Bow Athletic Club and others voiced their thoughts.
Another public forum will be held once the plans come into greater focus this August.
At the end of the day, Brown said, the project should be a reflection of what the public wants.
“I feel like we need to hear from the taxpayers and the residents,” she said. “What do we need? What do they want? I’m coming up with my own ideas, and I’ve heard from a few people, but I really feel like we haven’t done our due diligence to discover how that space could be used creatively by the public.”
Another question the city will need to address if it pushes ahead with this project: What happens to Beaver Meadow’s operations while a new clubhouse is being built? The Clubhouse Building committee will meet again on July 12 at 8 a.m. at the golf course, and the hope is that, in early August, there will be a meeting to gather public input once again before taking the final proposal to the City Council.
The hope among the project’s supporters is a new clubhouse will not only enhance the value of the property and make the course more attractive for golfers, it will serve as a new community gathering space and draw in more revenue.
Conversations about what exactly those community offerings besides golf in the summer and cross country skiing in the winter lay ahead.
Ideally, Brown said, feedback from the public will mold this into a space that can be enjoyed by a larger percentage of city residents.
“Let’s give them options,” she said. “Let’s hear what they would like to see. That’s a lot of space that a lot more people could be enjoying.”