By creating more appealing purposes for existing space, bringing new features and efficiencies to current structures, or starting from scratch with a state-of-the-art property, more of “tomorrow’s” clubs and resorts are fast becoming part of the current scene.
A funny thing has happened to many club and resort properties as they’ve jumped on board with the “green” movement. While the initial motivation is usually to be socially and environmentally responsible, managers have found there’s real money to be made from finding more eco-friendly ways to run their facilities, too.
Payoffs from Going All InThe 14.6% energy-use reduction achieved by the Westin Mission Hills Golf Resort and Spa, Rancho Mirage, Calif., in one year was just the most prominent payoff from the property’s overall drive to realize cost efficiencies through more eco-friendly practices. Here’s the full list of “green initiatives” the Westin Mission Hills has implemented—a list that reflects approaches taken by many club and resort properties as part of new sustainability strategies.
All departments/operations:
Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines
Recycling:
Housekeeping:
Banquet/Restaurants/Outlets:
Hotel Grounds and Landscaping:
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By the end of this month, Norwood Hills Country Club in St. Louis, Mo., expected to be sporting two new 25-kw solar panel systems, one on its clubhouse and the other on its pro shop building (which includes the cart barn where a fleet of 144 golf cars are charged), to become the first St. Louis-area club to make the move to solar energy.
John Wright, Norwood Hills’ General Manager/COO, says that while reducing the club’s carbon footprint and continuing to advance the cause of environmental responsibility was an important motivation for taking the step, the “serious economic benefits” to be gained from the change were what really sealed the deal.
In addition to rate guarantees for 25 years, Norwood Hills will get an immediate energy rebate of $100,000 for installing the panels, which will generate an estimated 66,000 kilowatt-hours of clean-energy production per year—enough, the club says, to power seven average St. Louis-area homes. In the same period of time, the system will also prevent the release of 51.3 tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas—the environmental equivalent of taking 10 cars off the road for a year.
Norwood Hills will also earn a 30% tax depreciation over five years, Wright says, and expects a full return on its investment within two to four years.
Wright sought out a local company about installing the panels after hearing of similar benefits, both financial and environmental, that were being realized by local municipalities and school districts that have started to use the technology. He did his homework, making sure he’d be protected against severe weather (the equipment is rated for winds up to 140 mph and hail as large as 1 ½ inches) and the darkest-day scenarios (St. Louis averages 4.7 hours of sunlight a day throughout the year, but guarantees and contingencies are in place should a permanent cloud settle in over Norwood Hills).
The installation of the panels—which Wright notes will sit on supports, be installed within seven to 10 days and not involve having anything attached to his structures’ roofs, nor be visible from elsewhere on the property—is the next and biggest step in what he says is now Norwood Hills’ third year of searching for ways to “go the extra mile by adhering to practices that benefit not only our facilities and membership, but the environment as well.” The club has already adapted recyclable styrofoam drink and food containers that are now “used everywhere,” he notes.
Impressive Company
Wright hopes his experience will encourage other properties to follow suit, and he’s already helped to advance the private club sector in following the lead that has been set by major resort properties such as the Westin Mission Hills Golf Resort and Spa in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and the PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
This July, the Westin Mission Hills received a $122,373 incentive check from Southern California Edison for making energy-efficient changes as part of the utility’s Lodging Energy Efficiency Program, a free initiative available to any property in Southern California. The program provides tools for identifying potential savings from making energy-savings improvements in both the front and back of the house. For participants in the program, Southern California Edison contracts with an engineering firm to conduct an energy audit of the property and devise an implementation plan, with the property then bearing the cost of capital expenses.
As part of its comprehensive drive to realize cost-efficiencies through more sustainable and eco-friendly practices (see box below), the Westin Mission Hills has invested about $1 million to date in energy-efficiency improvements, and is getting back incentive payments, like the one it received in July, based on the number of kilowatt-hours saved.
From July 2012 to this summer, the Westin Mission Hills has reduced its overall energy consumption by 14.6%, or 1.1 million kilowatt-hours—the equivalent carbon footprint of 123 cars. The reduction was largely achieved by replacing incandescent light bulbs with high-efficiency LEDs. The biggest differences from these changes can be realized in high-profile areas like pools (for one pool, the Westin Mission Hills traded 45 300-watt pool lights for 90-watt LEDs) or ballrooms (LEDs installed in the resort’s Oasis Ballroom now cost only 60 cents a year to operate, and can last for more than 27 years).
“We’re still testing them, but most probably, these will be the products that we will implement in all of our chandeliers,” Yousouf Khan, the resort’s Director of Engineering, said during a ceremony for July’s rebate check presentation.
At the PGA National Resort & Spa, facilities-related environmental initiatives, such as the installation this month in its parking lot of charging stations for electric and hybrid vehicles, are being approached as much for their value from a marketing and public relations standpoint as from the opportunities they present for substantial, long-term savings.
The new charging stations are part of PGA National’s continued investment in sustainable practices, the property says, that has also included newly updated, energy-efficient HVAC, a guest room energy management system, water efficiency measures and waste minimization and recycling. Additionally, PGA National, which offers 90 holes of championship golf on five courses, is in the process of obtaining golf course certification through the international Golf Environment Organization (GolfEnvironment.org) free OnCourse online program, which provides guidance on how club and resort properties can reap full benefits from sustainability efforts.
Acknowledging the resort’s effective and sustainable practices, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has also designated PGA National Resort & Spa as a Florida Green Lodge since 2007, through its program that recognizes lodging facilities in Florida that make a commitment to conserve and protect the state’s natural resources.
“We are proud to be the first in the [South Florida] area to install charging stations as the world moves toward more sustainable energy consumption,” said Joel Paige, Vice President and Managing Director, in making the property’s latest announcement. “We feel strongly about taking a leadership position in environmental responsibility and setting a good example for our community.”
Other clubs that have made noticeable strides—and realized tangible savings—from comprehensive efforts to introduce sustainable practices throughout their facilities include Town & Country Club of Saint Paul, Minn., which became the first country club to earn recognition from the Green Restaurant Association as a Certified Green Restaurant (“Don’t Get Mad…Get Green,” C&RB, June 2013), and Manhattan Woods Golf Club in Nyack, N.Y., which recently reported on the latest success in its Green Initiative program.
“We recently solved an electric issue at a tricky area on our facility, by installing a Solar Smart Tracking System at our Teaching Tee, which is the home of our Michael Breed Golf Academy,” reports Manhattan Woods’ General Manager, Dick Smith, Jr., PGA.
“The Golf Academy launched this spring, and the first improvement that was made was the addition of a structure to house Michael’s Academy,” Smith reports. “This structure was meant to serve as a storage facility for teaching equipment and as a second office for the Academy.
“There was a need for electric service in this building, but running a new electric line was cost-prohibitive and would have also done unnecessary damage,” Smith adds. “With the Smart Solar Tracking System, we now are able to produce enough power to charge and run our computers and cell phones and run fans and lights when needed. The system also comes with an outdoor light, which lights the area for added security at night.”
Taking a New Look Around
A by-product of the closer look that clubs and resorts are taking into all corners of their properties in search of new operating efficiencies is that it often yields ideas of how space can be better used to provide distinctive new activities for members and guests. That was the case in Scotland, Pa., when Jameson Wallace, PGA, General Manager/Head Golf Professional of Chambersburg Country Club, and his Board members kept looking at the unused tennis courts positioned prominently between the club’s parking lot and clubhouse.
One of the club’s Board members, Jim Baird, mentioned that he had been to the Villages, the huge central Florida retirement community where a game called “pickleball” was extremely popular. Wallace began to research the sport, which is a cross between ping-pong, tennis and badminton, with rules similar to a simpler version of tennis (it got its name from the family dog of the game’s inventor).
Pickleball is played with solid paddles, similar to large ping-pong paddles, but made of wood or fiberglass. The balls are similar to wiffle balls, but made of heavier and more rigid material.
A pickleball court covers an area 20 feet wide by 44 long, with a net 34 inches high in the middle. After determining that only Pinehurst Resort and a handful of other clubs had introduced the game, the leadership of Chambersburg CC decided to bring it to central Pennsylvania. Two of the club’s Har-Tru tennis courts that were seeing little use were converted to four pickleball courts, and almost as soon as courts and equipment were made available, Wallace reports, the game generated excitement among all segments of the membership, including families whose children could pick it up easily, and seniors with limited mobility for whom the movement required on the larger tennis court had become too challenging. On the courts’ official opening night in September, Wallace says, over 120 people came out and played for four hours, with lines of people waiting to get on the courts throughout the night. “Nice bar tab, too!” Wallace adds.
In scenic western North Carolina, clubs have been carving out new space to capitalize on a croquet craze. The latest to join in was The Country Club of Sapphire Valley (CCSV) in Sapphire, N.C., which opened its new croquet lawn, conveniently located between the clubhouse and golf course, this past June. CCSV now joins with other clubs in the region that have formed a Mountain Croquet Community. As one CCSV member noted after the club opened its new facility, “Croquet greatly enhances socializing [at the club], which is already very good.”
The Full Package
The return to better times in the club industry has also fostered a flurry of new construction that gives properties full opportunity to not only introduce state-of-the art operating efficiencies and eco-friendly features, but also provide new amenities that will position them well for serving the next generations of club members.
Among these projects (which will be covered in detail in future issues of C&RB), two of particular note include the new Family Activities Center at Cape Fear Country Club in Wilmington, N.C., which is scheduled to open in 2015 and is being designed to make it easy for members to combine family activities, fitness, food and wellness as part of their day-to-day lives.
And in 2014, The Briar Club, a Houston, Texas property that does not have a golf course, will unveil the results of a $22.5 million project that will include building a new, 44,000-sq. ft., three-story clubhouse with mezzanine, along with a new pool area with covered poolside cafe, a new three-story parking structure and significant improvements to many other facilities on the 5.5-acre property.
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