The county-owned Spessard Holland GC in Melbourne Beach, The Habitat GC in Malabar and The Savannahs in Merritt Island are all losing money, and the county is seeking a company “that is in the business of golf” to bring them back from the brink.
Brevard County is looking to have a private vendor take over the operation of the three county-owned golf courses to combat shrinking revenue, the Brevard County, Fla.-based Florida Today reported.
Brevard County Parks and Recreation Director Jack Masson pushed the idea to county commissioners at a budget workshop last week, and County Manager Stockton Whitten plans to make it part of his budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins October 1, Today reported.
Of the county’s three golf courses, The Savannahs in Merritt Island is performing the worst, with the number of rounds played per year plunging 34.7 percent since 2010 and operating losses increasing to about $184,000 last year. The course also has drainage issues that must be addressed, Today reported.
Masson said the decrease in employment at nearby Kennedy Space Center after the end of the space shuttle program hurt The Savannahs, which has never made a profit from operations since it opened in 1990, Today reported.
Spessard Holland Golf Course in Melbourne Beach had a profit of about $112,000 last year, and The Habitat Golf Course in Malabar made about $10,000. But The Savannahs put county’s overall golf courses operations about $62,000 in the red, Today reported.
“In 2014, the proverbial wall. We crossed it last year,” said Larry Wojciechowski, park support services manager, as he described for commissioners a chart showing expenses from golf operations exceeding revenue that year.
Whitten said a private firm running the golf operations would be better able to market the courses and have more flexibility to arrange deals with tour companies providing excursions for cruise passengers stopping at Port Canaveral, Today reported.
A company “that is in the business of golf, that knows golf a whole lot better than us” could find ways to increase revenue at the courses, Whitten said.
Masson said the goal of the plan “is to shift a significant portion of the risk away from the taxpayers and to the private sector.” He said the private lessee would benefit “from profits generated without the cash investment necessary for purchase or development of a new golf course.”
As it stands now, Whitten and Masson are proposing seeking proposals from companies interested in running the golf courses, then bringing the proposals back to the County Commission for additional discussion. If the plan goes forward, the company that wins the project would pay the county monthly fees that are a combination of fixed rent and a percentage of revenue. County Commissioner Curt Smith said he likes exploring that idea, Today reported.
“I think the bottom line here is, if you lease it out, you have businesspeople making business decisions to run a business, instead of asking our parks and recreation people to run a business,” Smith said. “They’ve got other things to do.”
County Commissioner Trudie Infantini said she would like the county to also consider abandoning the money-losing Savannahs course—potentially working a deal with the homeowners’ association of the 288-home Savannahs at Sykes Creek subdivision that surrounds the course to see if it wants to assume operations of the course, Today reported.
No matter what approach the county takes, it would still be responsible for paying off debt related to irrigation improvements made on the course. Irrigation, drainage and other improvements at Savannahs cost about $1 million, Masson said.
“They put a million-dollar irrigation on a failing golf course,” Infantini said during commission discussion of the issue.
In addition to payments of $75,000 a year through 2028 to finish paying for the The Savannahs’ improvements, the county has other golf-course-related debt stemming from the construction of The Savannahs and The Habitat. Those remaining payments total $2.24 million, and will be paid off in 2019, Today reported.
County Commissioner Andy Anderson told of a recent conversation he had with an acquaintance about The Savannahs and its lack of customers on weekdays. “I love going there with my buddies during the week, because you own the place,” Anderson was told. From the standpoint of the county trying to make money from golf operations, Anderson said, “that’s not what you want to hear.”
The county’s golf courses have a total of six full-time and 11 part-time employees. They use volunteers as starters, on-course rangers and golf cart attendants, with the volunteers getting reduced-price rounds of golf in return for their work, Today reported.
The county since 1995 has contracted with an outside company, International Golf Management, to provide golf course maintenance. That contract expires in November. Two private contractors handle the concessions operations at the golf courses, while the county operates the pro shops, Today reported.
Masson said, even if the county leases its golf courses, he would like the county to maintain oversight of course condition and rate structure so they are not out of whack, compared with about two dozen other courses in Brevard County, Today reported.
“We’re all vying for the same buck,” Masson said. “Golfers are fickle. They’ll drive 50 miles to get a free hotdog.”
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