While stunning views and rolling fairways have long been selling points for golf courses, maintenance facilities serve as the heart of the greens—and clubs are now making sure they get the respect they deserve.
By Brandi Shaffer, Associate Editor
SUMMING IT UP
- Creating a clean and efficient maintenance facility streamlines operations and ensures optimum course conditions.
- Keeping members up-to-date on maintenance facility conditions can make it easier to get a project off the ground.
- Segmenting maintenance facility space keeps traffic flow smooth and protects staff (and members) from chemicals.
Of all the renovation and redesign projects that can be presented to club members or owners for funding approval, the golf course maintenance facility might have the toughest case to make. Those outside the grounds department don’t often appreciate, or even think about, the need for efficient and updated turf care centers, storage areas and environmental stations—until the effects of a dysfunctional maintenance space reverberate throughout the golf course and property.
More properties, however, are now recognizing the value of well-designed course maintenance facilities, not only to protect costly equipment from the elements and provide more productive working conditions for staff, but also to showcase “green” technology, provide additional meeting space, and even extend new amenities to members and guests.
Everyone’s Invited
After years of being “on the books,” the members of Town & Country Club (TCC) finally approved a new $2.5 million Turf Center for the Saint Paul, Minn., property in 2004. Reshaping the project to provide tangible benefits for the membership, says General Manager Vincent Tracy, CCM, CCE, was the key to getting it off the ground.
“We designed the break room to also be a meeting room, complete with a built-in projector and smart screen,” Tracy says. “We talked from the start about offering the space to members and committees to use—we felt members needed to touch [the Turf Center] to make it more palatable for them to finance.”
Open-forum “town hall” meetings that presented the project to members, communicated the financial commitment and even included “eye-opening” tours of existing maintenance facility conditions proved to be a successful approach, adds Kenneth Powell, a member of TCC’s Board of Directors and Building Committee. “Keeping membership informed through the meetings made the process much easier and mitigated contention,” says Powell.
Saint Paul, Minn.“We talked from the start about offering the [Turf Center’s] meeting space to members and committees to use. We felt members needed to touch [the maintenance facility], to make it more palatable for them to finance.”—Vincent Tracy, CCM, CCE
General Manager
Less is Much More
Once approved, TCC’s Certified Golf Course Superintendent, William Larson, worked closely with architects to design the new maintenance facility. With function, efficiency and maintainability established as the main design criteria, what had morphed into a sprawling, six-building maintenance complex was relocated to a different part of the property that was selected because it would not cause any disruption to the golf course during construction and offered easy access to service vehicles. As an added bonus, the new location was closer to TCC’s clubhouse.
Most impressively, though, while the new area for the maintenance facility would now take up a smaller footprint on the property, the new design created a more efficient, two-building complex that would provide nearly double the usable square footage, to 18,000 sq. ft.
In designing how the new buildings would look (see photo, above), a conscious decision was also made not to replicate the architectural style of TCC’s clubhouse or new pool building that was also coming on stream (“Getting Back in the Swim at Town & Country Club,” C&RB, August 2006). Instead, a simple pre-cast structure with a flat roof was drawn up that would give the buildings a low profile on the golf course. The precast concrete walls also offered a cost-effective solution that could stand up to abuse and allow ivy to climb up and eventually cover the facility.
With so much extra square footage to work with, Larson could now make sure the various functions of the facility would be segmented logically. Offices, locker and break rooms would be kept near the employee parking lot. The mechanics’ area, including a paint booth and welding room, would be located away from the traffic flow of regular staff activity. And the pesticide filling station and equipment wash area would be kept far away from the offices. A separate building was also created for housing harder-to-store materials such as different soils, winter greens covers and fencing.
An outdoor patio was added to further enhance the break room, both for staff and for when it would be used by members. Because the space would serve that dual purpose, TCC also decided to spring for upgrades such as porcelain tile floors, stainless steel appliances and nicer bathrooms.
For food and beverage functions held in the Turf Center area, food is brought from the main kitchen in hot boxes and also cooked fresh on grills on the patio. The cafeteria/conference room has room for 30, with a stove, microwave, refrigerator, microwave oven and a dishwasher. (For details on how TCC creates action stations on the property, see “Getting In On the Action” on pg. 29 of this issue.)
“By having the facility open for member use, it forces us to keep it clean and tidy at all times, which is nice,” notes Larson. “Our staff is very proud of the facility, and it is not an inconvenience for us when members come up and use it.”
TCC’s course-and-grounds crew moved into the new facility in the spring of 2009, and the staff—as well as the club and its members—have been demonstrating its benefits from day one. “We are much more efficient in our day-to-day operation now,” says Larson. “We are more organized, mainly because we have much more space. The attitude of the crew is at an all-time high, because everything is new and more professional.”
Truckee, Calif.“Having a LEED-certified building shows the town of Truckee that we are ‘green’ and environmentally aware of our beautiful surroundings.”—Jason DeHerrera
Head Golf Course Superintendent
The new golf course maintenance building at Black Hall Club in Old Lyme, Conn., not only made the facility more efficient, but added new comforts for the staff: “We have tables and chairs for lunch, rather than eating off a bench,” says Superintendent Phil Neaton.
Making “Green” a Priority
Some clubs manage to get it right the first time around.
Completed in April 2004, the Natural Resource Maintenance Center is the first and only shop on site at Old Greenwood, one of three golf courses at Tahoe Mountain Club in Truckee, Calif.
The 15,000-sq. ft. facility is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified, thanks to waterless urinals, motion-censored lights throughout the shop, massive skylights to provide natural light during the day to save money on utilities, and more energy-saving features. Additionally, building materials containing more than 10 percent of post-consumer recycled content were used to construct the building, and more than 94 percent of construction waste was diverted away from the landfill by recycling and reuse.
Old Lyme, Conn.“We’re spread out now. One of the things about this business is the guys like to be outside and have a lot of space around them. You put them in a small space with six other guys in the winter, and tempers flare.”
—Phil Neaton, Superintendent
“Having a LEED-certified building shows the town of Truckee that we are ‘green’ and environmentally aware of our beautiful surroundings,” says Jason DeHerrera, Head Golf Course Superintendent. But its beginnings were far more humble; the maintenance staff previously worked out of large metal storage crates in an unpaved yard, where sunlight, rain and dust were free to inflict damage on the equipment and reduce its longevity.
So it’s no surprise the club also sought a highly functional space when designing the facility. The equipment storage area was designed for smooth transition in and out of the shop, while a separate mechanics area ensures adequate space for all service-related tasks. A fuel/wash island makes washing and fueling equipment more efficient, and bulk storage bins located on the opposite side of the maintenance yard help provide adequate space for delivery and loading.
“Technology played a big role in the design,” says DeHerrera. An overhead lube/air center provides all oil, grease and compressed air for the shop, and a closed exhaust system allows equipment services to be performed indoors during inclement weather.
Keeping the Peace
Black Hall Club’s sprawling and spacious four-building maintenance facility wasn’t always so impressive. But five years ago, an insurance company’s dour safety report provided the impetus to renovate the Old Lyme, Conn., club’s then-6,000-sq. ft. maintenance facility.
“It was pretty bad,” recalls Superintendent Phil Neaton with a laugh. “It was once part of a larger farm and my office is where they used to keep the bulls; the cows were down the street.”
But the insurance report, noting inadequate wiring, trip hazards, and poor ventilation and lighting, served as fodder for what Neaton calls “years of political wrangling” to get the club to save money for the project. Improvements finally commenced in September 2008 and were completed in April 2009—and the result has been a mix of comfort and pride.
Getting Started
Beginning a golf course maintenance facility can be a daunting prospect. Organizing priorities is the first step; here are suggestions for how to start the process:
- n Location: The location of the turf care center is dependent on the needs, requirements and restrictions of the facility. A site assessment should be performed to determine adequate acreage; access to golf course, street and utilities; location safety; impact on neighbors and golfers; development costs, and code issues.
- Turf Care Maintenance Building: The main building in any turf care center houses administration,
equipment storage, equipment repair and employment facilities, and the size and configuration is dictated by the number of employees, equipment volume and the site. - Environmental Management: Separate buildings must be used for fueling and washdown operations,
chemical and fertilizer storage, and mix and load operations; safety and fire codes must be adhered to because of the flammable nature of the chemicals. The sizes of these buildings are dictated by the number of bays needed for fueling, washing and mix and load processes, as well as the amount of storage space required for fuel, chemicals and equipment. - “Green technology”: This can be incorporated through translucent panels, compact fluorescent lighting, motion sensors, and radiant and geothermal heat, to keep energy costs down. Zero-discharge buildings, wastewater recycling systems and waterless bathroom fixtures save water.
SOURCE: GOLF STRUCTURE ALTERNATIVES, RYE, N.H.
“The big choke point for taking the club to a higher level was maintenance,” Neaton says. “We only had a gas heater and wood stoves, so we wanted to make it comfortable for staff.”
Neaton worked with a firm specializing in golf-property structures to design an efficient maintenance facility while also ensuring that everything was up to code. “The services they offered were worth it,” Neaton says. “Get an architect that does this kind of thing for a living, and they can save you a world of trouble. They caught a lot of things I would have missed, like eye-wash stations, room configurations and traffic flow.”
Black Hall’s main turf care building now measures 12,000 sq. ft. and is half-heated with a wood-fired boiler for a meeting/break room, administrative offices and lockers, while the other half is used for equipment and parts storage.
Separately, a 2,400-sq. ft. environmental management center with pitched floors assures that waste oil and runoff stay within the building, where they’re run through a microbial wastewater recycling system.
“One of the big things we had in mind for the new facility was where we washed off,” Neaton says. “Regulations mandate that runoff all has to go into one spot, and it can’t go into the environment. We needed an environmentally correct place to wash our equipment and store our chemicals.”
The fuel and wash building also houses a spill-recycling tank and fireproof fertilizer and chemical storage area. Five bays with cement floors are devoted to bulk material storage.
Sectioning off the various parts of the maintenance facility now allows painting to be done in a separate building with exhaust fans, and keeps computer-aided grinders secluded to a room that doesn’t subject staff to their dust.
Black Hall purposely decided to put its new buildings in a highly visible area of the property, Neaton notes. “You drive by it on the way in, so it’s the first thing you see,” he says. “We had to keep it neat. We built berms and planted shrubs. It doesn’t really jump out at you, but we added foundation plants, so it wasn’t just a stark rectangular box.”
That location, and the efficient and spacious layout of the new facility, now cultivates a sense of pride that prompts staff members to take the initiative in maintaining equipment and keeping the grounds pristine, he adds. And when everything is kept in its proper place and is easily accessible, the little jobs stay “little,” he notes.
The course maintenance area is also a much more peaceful place at Black Hall. “We’re spread out now,” Neaton says. “One of the things about this business is the guys like to be outside and have a lot of space around them. You put them in a small space with six other guys in the winter, and tempers flare.”
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