When a new club, resort or golf course is being built—especially one that’s part of a project that includes a residential community—“time to market” and “cost to market” are just as critical concerns for the property’s developer as they are for any pharmaceutical firm or manufacturer trying to roll out a new product.
In all cases, every dollar spent and every day delayed before sales of the new product can begin will have an effect on total profitability that can never be fully recovered.
And while manufacturing and pharmaceuticals are industries that devote significant resources to “R” as well as to“D,” management of new club properties want to focus much more on marketing and selling memberships and residences than on conducting exhaustive research into the various brands and models of golf carts or greensmowers.
“When you’re trying to get a new property opened, picking out the features and colors of your mowers and carts is not something you want to—or can—spend a lot of time on,” says Anthony DiNardo, Chief Financial Officer of the Gulf Bay Group of Companies, Naples, Fla.
That’s why DiNardo—who had opened several clubs for another management company before joining Gulf Bay—was pleased to be presented with a new approach as he was working to get Gulf Bay’s ambitious new Fiddler’s Creek property up and running in 2001.
Spread over nearly 4,000 acres in Naples, Fiddler’s Creek will be capable of accommodating 6,000 residences by its projected build-out in 2020. Homeowners are members of The Club & Spa at Fiddler’s Creek, which includes a 54,000-sq. ft., resort-style clubhouse with fitness and tennis facilities, spa services, multi-pool complex, and casual and formal dining menus. Homeowners also have the opportunity to join The Golf Club at Fiddler’s Creek (currently featuring the Arthur Hills-designed Creek Course, with plans to eventually have 36 holes), as well as the Tarpon Club, a deepwater marina on nearby Isles of Capri. The Fiddler’s Creek property also includes Marsh Point Nature Park, with a boardwalk that includes a gazebo outlook.
Bringing the Showroom to the Buyer
With all of this on the drawing board, DiNardo clearly didn't have much time to kick golf cart tires or look under the hoods of fairway mowers. So his ears perked up when representatives of Textron Financial Corporation proposed that many of Fiddler's Creek's needs could be addressed by taking advantage of Textron's "Total Golf Solution" package. Through this bundled approach, Fiddler's Creek could get its golf carts through E-ZGO Textron, its turf equipment through Jacobsen Textron, and finance not only the equipment, but the new golf course’s mortgage as well, through Textron Financial Corporation.
This concept appealed to Di-Nardo on several levels. “There were time savings, because we wouldn’t have to specify and shop for all of those things separately,” he says. “There were financial savings, because we were now developing critical mass and becoming a bigger player with one supplier. And the biggest savings of all were that there were no headaches in taking care of all these needs, so we could move on to focus on all of the other things we needed to do.”
Throughout his career in club management and property development, DiNardo adds, he’d often wondered why the process of acquiring needed equipment and furnishings was always so decentralized. “There are so many vendors to deal with and in many cases you don’t even deal directly with the manufacturers, but with distributors,” he notes. “It makes it difficult not only to consolidate your purchasing power, but also to have effective relationships when there are service issues or other problems. Plus it’s just so time-consuming to negotiate with all of the individual companies.
“So when Textron brought this approach to me, I thought that bundling many of the things that we needed to get started in this way made a lot of sense,” he says. “And to be honest with you, I didn’t even know at first that [E-Z GO and Jacobsen] were part of the [Textron] family. That only made it more comfortable, when we learned we’d be using such well-established brands.”
Since Fiddler’s Creek opened its course in 2002, DiNardo reports that the “onestop” approach has continued to pay dividends. “[Textron] calls me to let me know when it’s time to change out [equipment],” he says. “It’s proved to be a great turnkey solution—not only to help us get started, but also to make it easier to focus on our continued development as we’ve grown.” C&RB
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