[Mark Arata]

A question for the architects out there.........

City Park board unveils master plan for golf
Posted by Brian Allee-Walsh, The Times-Picayune February 17, 2009 5:54PM
Categories: Golf
The City Park board of commissioners unveiled a "master plan'' Tuesday that would convert hundreds of dormant acreage into a 45-hole golf complex on which construction could begin by the end of 2009.

Phase I would cost approximately $24.5 million and include the construction of an 18-hole championship course, a clubhouse, driving range and maintenance building encompassed between Interstate 610 and Filmore Avenue and bounded east and west by Marconi and Wisner boulevards.

Of that $24.5 million, City Park has in hand about $15.5 million in FEMA-related money and state capital outlay funds. The Bayou District Foundation, a local nonprofit, is expected to raise an additional $9 million to complete the costs of the first phase.

The 18-hole North Course at City Park will remain open during construction of Phase 1. Phase 2 of the master plan will cost approximately $21.5 million and will feature a second 18-hole golf course and a 9-hole executive course.

"This is huge,'' City Park Chief Executive Officer Bob Becker said. "This is the first time that we have a draft of the master plan for golf in hand. The board saw it, thought it was worthy of our consideration and we'll see what happens.

"Hopefully, we will approve this plan or some modification of this plan and it will become part of the park's master plan for golf.''

A public meeting to discuss the master plan is scheduled for March 10. The 36-member board of commissioners could vote on the matter as early as its next scheduled monthly meeting, March 24.

In the coming days, the master plan can be viewed online at www.nocp.org.

24.5 m for a golf course when you already own all the land and it was a golf course to begin with? Is that high? It's not like this is going to be Pine Valley south or anything.........just curious, I wanted to know if this was another famous New Orleans scam job, where the course costs 3m and 21m go in some politicians pocket........

[Joel_Stewart]

Yes it's a lot but it's all city and government jobs so the price is escalated x 5.  It's exactly what happened to the city of San Francisco and Harding Park.   That job was a renovation and ended up costing 20 to 30 million so it could be used as a case study.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Mark that is wrong how to high those prices are. I find it hard to believe that anyone could do that with a straight face. The 24 million for the TPC was so fat with consultant fees and multiple people performing the same tasks it choked a rational businessman.

[Art_Schaupeter]

What is required to make the "dormant" acreage golf-ready?  Is it in the Mississippi, is it a swamp?  Without some other civil engineering requirement, 24 mil to build 18 holes is completely unnecessary, obviously.  I am assuming that there is something more to the scope of work that wasn't mentioned because it says "phase 1 would cost approximately 24.5 million and INCLUDE the construction of an 18 hole ....". I emphasize the word include.  Between the two phases it will be 45 holes of golf for 45 mil?  There has to be more to the scope, I hope.

[Jamey Bryan]

This is:

--The state in which the bumper sticker "Vote for the crook, it's important" made it's debut and made sense.

--The state in which a wise lawyer told me that Louisiana never ratified the Constitution and that normal due process procedures don't apply.

--The only state in the country I've worked in which has essentially no controls on "ex-parte" communications on proceedings before the PSC.

Jamey

[Mark Arata]

Art, it was a golf course already, it was flooded during Katrina, but it was already a golf course.  It isnt swamp land, there is enough acreage out there to build a pretty darn nice course or 2 if left to a professional. 

The friends of the board here could make a very good course or 4 out of the land for the amount of money they are talking about, I am sure.

This place really is a banana republic..... The other day the city council here had to sue the mayor to enforce the Sunshine law on open meetings for public bid projects......in response the mayor just disbanded the board that supposedly reviews these projects and declared that he would do it himself, therefore no meetings, and the pubilc will not get a chance to see what is going on.

I would call this place 3rd world, but that would be an insult to 3rd world countries all over the world.

[Art_Schaupeter]

Wow Mark, that's unbelievable.  I just added up the total development costs of my last four projects, and came up with $33 mil.  That's all in, course, clubhouse, maintenance, parking lot, etc, not including land costs.  Without some additional scope of work the costs outlined in the article are just about criminal. 

Was there any elaboration of how the costs were determined?  Actually, looking at the last paragraph of your response, I'm guessing not.

[Philippe Binette]

Sometimes, city estismated might include the pretended land buying price.

[Garland Bayley]

Yes

[Mark Arata]

Someone just told me that Rees Jones was designing the two courses here....do containment mounds really cost that much? 

[Mike Hendren]

In the midst of budget shortfalls (Kudos to California for leading the way with $41 billion!) no government agency should be paying a penny to develop or renovate a golf course.  It's immoral to do so until poverty, healthcare, education and crime are first addressed and funded.

It's time for America and its governments to put on their Big Boy Pants and suck it up.

Mike

[Phil McDade]

In the midst of budget shortfalls (Kudos to California for leading the way with $41 billion!) no government agency should be paying a penny to develop or renovate a golf course.  It's immoral to do so until poverty, healthcare, education and crime are first addressed and funded.

It's time for America and its governments to put on their Big Boy Pants and suck it up.

Mike

Michael:

Poverty and crime will never be eliminated, some folks will always get better health care than others, and there will always be educational disparities among children.

Given that (and perhaps you don't, and that's fine...), a worse economic situation than the one we find ourselves in now resulted, over time, in building lots of things that didn't necessarily address the concerns you raise. Lodges, football stadia in the South, parks, hiking trails, swimming pools, bridges, and -- yes, some golf courses -- were built in the 1930s.

To cite one example you bring up, in more than 20 years covering them and governing them, I have never met an educator who thinks education is adequately funded. Odd.

[RJ_Daley]

It's immoral to do so until poverty, healthcare, education and crime are first addressed and funded.

Mike, it is widely known and accepted, as Mark A points out, that in N.O., money thrown at poverty, healthcare, education are the gateway to crime.  The more money thrown, the more crime. 

What part of these projected City Park golf course reconstruction'costs' might be slipped into the stim? 

While I'm for the stim in concept, I'm skeptical that the workers won't get the benefits to stimulate their consumption demand with widespread wage improvements, so much as a few contractor company owners who will take wild profits, and hire illegals, or cut so many costs in substandard material, that the infrastructure projects will crumble early, or engineering won't work. 

Unless a new ethic, and well published and absolute commitment to prosecute profiteer pirates, and bid cronyism, etc., will be draconian, I don't have much hope it will be effective. 

City Park was a very worthy citizen rec facility, when I last saw it.  Sure it needed remodelling.  I reckon it needs plenty of engineering infrastructure.  I don't know what the status of the condition of that levee around the whole complex is after Katrina, and what it takes to keep it draining, given the whole park is <sea level.  But, shovel ready or not, that is a big number, and if it isn't paid by the stim with no debt service, the cost to play it for citizens, in their own city would seem to potentially be prohibitive. 

The City of Milwaukee took WPA money to do spectacular work in the infra structure of city wide parks and rec, including Brown Deer Whitnall, Dreska park golf courses.  That worked well, and interestingly enough, the city was long run by real Socialist mayors for most of the 20th century.  They credit the City's traditions of social concerns and planning from before the depression and post depression for Milwaukee's significant successes by comparison to many cities.  No bid corruption, no cronyism, just jobs for workers and economic stim with quality and a measure of honesty and social concern built in.  Go figure... 

http://www4.uwm.edu/eti/pages/surveys/each/wlsf95.htm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4207/is_19950226/ai_n10186749

[Craig Sweet]

The land was flooded? How toxic was the water that flooded the land?  Is there going to be some reclamation required to make the land usable for golf? 

[Craig Sweet]

According to the web site they have only one of their three courses remaining after Katrina...and that course only opened in August.  The web site notes that all equipment, carts, etc were lost to the floods...under anywhere from 5-8 feet of water....

Does this cost also include new carts, maintenance equipment, etc?

[Mark Arata]

The water that flooded the course was no more toxic than any other water that overtops banks and floods other areas....they basically opened one course out there about a year after the storm just by cutting the grass and removing some new growth that had popped up.

Unless they are planning a Trump like experence there, with gold carts, and 2 lane paved cart paths, I dont get the price tag at all. The people that play there regularly complain about 20 dollar greens fees as is, I cant see the market even in good economic times supporting a high end course there, let alone 2.

Someone is getting paid off, or the majority of the money they are claiming is going towards golf is being diverted somewhere else under the guise of the golf project.

And I know one thing for sure, there will be a political battle royale if they tried to move the PGA tour stop from the TPC to City Park, no matter how good the courses turn out there. The TPC is backed by some of the biggest politicos in Jefferson parish and is now overseen by the LSED, which also oversees the Superdome/Arena etc. It will be a bloodbath if they tried to move that from Jefferson Parish to Orleans Parish........

Should be interesting.......or not, even money says the project will never happen in the first place. Our beloved Mayor Wonka keeps talking about all these projects that are going to happen with reconstruction dollars, but not a single one he has touted has gotten off the ground in 3 1/2 years.....

But Mardi gras parades are rolling, so everything is ok........ 

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