THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994 TAG: 9406250090
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GERALD A. PORTERFIELD
DATELINE: 940626 LENGTH: Medium
It seems almost everyone agrees that the development of additional golf facilities in the southern part of the city would certainly enable our hotels to attract more visitors able to spend more money over more days. Read: increased sales taxes for the city.
{REST} Moreover, golf-course development in the southern region could provide the larger landholders in the area a lucrative alternative to the more typical intense residential development. Read: reduced capital spending for the city, a reasonable return on investment for the landowner and - yes, Virginia, contrary to popular misconception - environmentally sensitive development.
If golf development is so good, why isn't it popping up all over? The standard bureaucratic response is: ``These things take time.'' Meantime, Myrtle Beach is at 75 golf courses and counting. Virginia Beach is at . . . 10. Three are private clubs, three are municipal courses, one is a Par 3 executive course. Not much to build a vacation golf package around: That would require a minimum of eight high-quality courses. The city is in the process of acquiring land for a course on Seaboard Road. At the rate the process is proceeding, six new courses will be 20 years in the making.
Many say we need a new study to determine the market potential and the economic feasibility of new city-supported golf courses. I say we need an approach that eliminates the city's active involvement as owner, builder or operator while encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit to ``lead off.''
In addition, as a member of the Resort Area Advisory Commission, I feel it is within our charge to assist as best we can. As an old professor in one of my design classes said, ``Nothing happens till you get the pencil moving.'' We don't need an outside expert to waste time and money ruminating over assumptions and extrapolations of ``extended visitor days'' or ``maximum rounds per year.'' On the contrary, to create several new courses we should:
Perform a short and inexpensive study to identify the 10 or 12 sites on which a golf course would even be possible. Basic, key information - such as vegetation and hydric soils, floodplain and wetlands and tax-map parcel sizes - will, when overlain, clearly show where golf could even be considered.
Approach the owners of these parcels and several noted developers. Inform them of our goals and ``sell'' them on the idea of owner equity in golf-course development. This is one way to make golf development possible without massive underwriting by the city.
Contract several well-known and reputable golf-course construction, design and operation firms with interest in our area and provide them an opportunity to meet with, and match up with the landowners in development teams. This could easily occur if some forward-thinking hotel owners would offer a few rooms and possibly some meeting space, gratis, for the cause.
Solicit from the city some assurance that it will act as a facilitator, not just as a regulator, in these efforts. Far too often, staff offers stumbling blocks rather than solutions.
Entertain proposals from the various golf-development teams that incorporate modest amounts of residential development in addition to quality golf. Trust me: The golf developers will perform enough market research to ensure feasibility without the city spending a dime to prove the obvious.
This approach would enable several courses to be developed within a short time at little or no expense to the city. The result: reduced residential development, environmentally sensitive land use and enhanced recreational opportunities. Entrepreneurship and competition will bring these new courses to market if the city can articulate this as a desired vision for the southern lands and then get out of the way.
Fore!
by CNB