"1. So, Mike, the business premise and case for the course - on the surface - are quite sound.
2. The "industry" attempted and succeeded at Harding Park in SF.
3. Social engineering question...? Not sure I understand where you are coming from.
Now, it may never get done for myriad other reasons that you do not cite: environmental issues, city politics, etc.
But, if it ever gets done, the tee sheet will be busy."
Ian,
The proposed Jackson Park-South Shore golf course has some significant differences with the work done in San Francisco on Harding Park.
First, the Harding Park course had hosted a PGA event for many years in the 1960’s, at that time it was a ~6,700 layout that was stretched to ~7,200 after the renovation. So this renovation started with a near PGA caliber layout on a contiguous piece of property, obviously in poor condition, but the bones were certainly there.
JP-SS is not even a complete course yet, and will require mountains more in terms of infrastructure to complete. Roadways, underpasses, overpasses, shoreline stabilization, all required before a single dollar is spent on the golf. The two projects scopes are so different that direct comparisons are somewhat meaningless.
What can be clearly compared are the initial costs. JP-SS construction totals now seem likely to be 3-4 times the $16 million HP expense with all the required infrastructure costs included. How those costs are funded, and the expense of servicing any debt associated with them may largely determine the financial viability of the project. There has been a fair amount of hand waving by both CPD and CPGA when it comes to the projects financial projections and a conspicuous lack of any hard analysis. While I agree that the new course if built will have a full tee sheet, whether it is a profitable project remains to be seen.
Second, the money for the HP course renovation was ultimately public money that came from the State of California under Prop 12. Many of the arguments made in SF then over the privatization of HP are the same as voices in Chicago today. This argument ceases when the money is public. The potential or perceived conflicts of interest between a public asset and private oversight or direct control of that asset disappear when the financing is public.
The ongoing debate in Chicago, led by FOTP, is over the role private funding has in determining the future design, use, and access to public assets, and specifically public parks. The failed Lucas Museum project is one example of private money in public spaces. In the Jackson-Midway-Washington Parks corridor there is another private group called Project 120, that has inserted itself into the parks development process. The starving of the Chicago Park District of adequate funding has created an opening for these types of groups to appear as private saviors. The local residents are justifiably suspicious of the motives and intentions of these groups who have largely operated outside the normal CPD channels, bypassing much of the required regulatory oversight and local input that community groups feel is necessary. Mayor Emanuel and other city leaders have embraced these groups, their money, and their ability to circumvent statutory due process procedures.
Unfortunately, the golf course is just a small part of this much broader discussion about parks privatization, the future of Jackson and Washington Parks, the Obama Library, public transportation, and overall south side economic development. As much as the CPGA folks would like to slice off their piece of this pie and do their own thing, all these other issues are wrapped up together with the golf course.
Ultimately, I’m not convinced that the CPGA’s project really intends or cares to accomplish much social engineering. It seems more likely that the group’s happy PR chatter of community development, investment, and local job creation is nothing more than politically correct marketing intended to get those community members not already on board to embrace this project.