The $26 million course will join the shorter North Course, which reopened in 2008, three years after the entire golf complex in New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The project is aimed at offering higher-level play to the public and helping to fund both the park and a mixed-income residential community nearby.
More than a decade after it was originally proposed, the South Course at Bayou Oaks in City Park in New Orleans will open next month. The project is aimed not only at offering higher-level play to the public, but also at helping to fund both the park itself and a mixed-income residential community nearby, the Baton Rouge, La., Advocate reported.
The course will join the shorter North Course, which reopened in 2008, three years after the entire City Park golf complex was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. A grand opening is scheduled for April 21, giving a significant boost to New Orleans’ public golf options and giving the city an additional venue to attract championship golf events and tourists, the Advocate reported.
The South Course was built on parts of the site formerly occupied by City Park’s East and West courses. City Park once operated four courses but will have only two moving forward, the Advocate reported.
The Bayou Oaks complex represents an unusual public-private model for funding both City Park, a state entity whose $16.5 million operating budget is entirely funded through self-generated fees, and the nearby Columbia Parc neighborhood. The Bayou District Foundation is responsible for developing that mixed-income community on the former site of the St. Bernard public housing complex and the Educare New Orleans Head Start center there, the Advocate reported.
“This model allows us to be able to generate revenue through golf and put it back into the community,” said Gerard Barousse Jr., chairman of the Bayou District Foundation.
The South Course, designed by Rees Jones, will play to a par 72 and can stretch between 5,054 and 7,302 yards, depending on the tee locations for each hole. Jones retained only one hole from the original East and West courses but uses some routings from those courses through the park. The South Course boasts 46 bunkers, over 300 oak trees and water hazards on all but four holes, the Advocate reported.
Officials were contemplating a major overhaul of the golf courses at City Park even before Katrina, but the damage caused by the storm delayed those plans, City Park CEO Bob Becker said. While the North Course was reopened in 2008, the park was left trying to find money to reopen any of its other courses. “We didn’t have enough money to do all we wanted to do,” Becker said.
The Bayou District Foundation, inspired by the East Lake Development in Atlanta that used a golf club to help fund community redevelopment in a nearby neighborhood, kicked in funding for the new course, with a promise that a share of its revenue would go back to the foundation, the Advocate reported.
The $26 million course was paid for with about $9.9 million from the state, $7.1 million from FEMA and $8.9 million from the Bayou District Foundation. The foundation’s contribution will go toward a new clubhouse for the park—which has been without one since the storm—as well as maintenance facilities, an enhanced practice facility and other buildings on the site, the Advocate reported.
After its first three years, the South Course is expected to bring in about $5 million a year, though much of that will go toward maintaining the course itself. About $800,000 will go to City Park for other purposes, and the Bayou District Foundation is expected to get several hundred thousand dollars, the Advocate reported.
Fees at the course will range from $59 to $99 a round, including a golf cart and a bucket of balls for the driving range—a significant boost in cost over the North Course, which is available for as little as $12 per round, the Advocate reported.
The South Course will likely provide competition for other public-access courses in the New Orleans area including TPC Louisiana in Avondale, and English Turn Golf and Country Club and Lakewood Golf Club in Algiers, both former homes of the city’s PGA Tour event, the Advocate reported.
Between 35,000 and 50,000 rounds of golf are played each year on City Park’s North Course, bringing in about $1 million a year; about $100,000 to $200,000 of that goes toward other aspects of the park’s operation, the Advocate reported.
The golf course project was not without controversy. When construction started two years ago, groups seeking to protect the site from redevelopment formed the City Park for Everyone Coalition and organized on social media under the hashtag WildIsFree. A few people tried to block the project by climbing into trees that were slated to be taken down to make way for the course. One, Jonathan “Lloyd” Boover, had to receive medical attention after falling from a tree that he had occupied for almost two weeks, the Advocate reported.
Officials point out that with two courses, rather than the original four, only about 316 acres of the park are now dedicated to golf, compared with about 508 acres before the storm. And about 300 oaks remain on the new course, the Advocate reported.
“This is going to prove to be one of the best courses in the city and state,” Barousse said.
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