The Macungie, Pa. club is renovating its 18-hole course, adding a pool bar and restaurant area, a permanent indoor tennis and multipurpose structure and renovations to the back end of the clubhouse to increase banquet capacity and member-only dining.

Members of Brookside Country Club in Macungie, Pa. recently approved investing $7.3 million into upgrades to the golf course, clubhouse and other amenities, The Allentown Morning Call reported. Plans include expanded banquet facilities and restaurants, and tennis and pickleball courts with the hope of attracting more families.

The club is renovating its 18-hole course, adding a pool bar and restaurant area, a permanent indoor tennis and multipurpose structure and renovations to the back end of the clubhouse to increase banquet capacity and member-only dining, The Morning Call reported.

“We wanted to stay relevant in the country club community,” Brookside President Robert DellaSala said. “We haven’t done much since they built the clubhouse in ’89. We really haven’t done anything in 30-plus years. We didn’t want to get stale and we needed to upgrade the facilities and bring them up to the current date.”

DellaSala told The Morning Call that the club sold 17 acres on the right side of the driving range and entryway for $3.5 million and is using the proceeds to help finance the projects. It secured a 10-year loan to cover the rest.

That project started in the fall when 268 trees were chopped down to improve the airflow on the golf course, The Morning Call reported. General Manager Kristofer Fair said $1.9 million will be spent on the course.

“Pretty much, golf courses go through this thing every 15-20 years,” DellaSala said. “We’re probably 10 years behind the eight ball.”

The renovation is being led by New York golf course architect Jeffrey Stein, who told Golf Today magazine that it’s “a very exciting creative opportunity” and is enjoying the challenge of updating Brookside, which was designed by J. Frank Meehan in 1929, The Morning Call reported. Meehan designed several courses in Pennsylvania, New York and Florida.

“We hired a great golf course designer to come in and help us redo the golf course where we’re going to maintain the 1929 charm,” DellaSala said, “but with updated bunker conditions, green conditions and playable conditions all throughout the golf course, for all levels of play.”

While Brookside will likely never host golf tournaments on the scale of the U.S. Senior Open, which last summer was at Saucon Valley Country Club, DellaSala said it looks forward to hosting regional and state tournaments, The Morning Call reported.

The clubhouse, which was opened in 1989, will feature two new restaurants with an opening glass wall system facing the mountains behind the club, The Morning Call reported. There will also be a complete renovation to the catering ballroom for weddings.

“We’re probably going to be adding on about another 5,000 sq. ft. of banquet facility than what we currently have now,” DellaSala said. “On the member side, we’re increasing our member dining by three times the size we have right now, because our expectation is that our membership is going to grow to more than 500 families. Right now we’re at 460. And our plan is to be prepared to grow.”

A pool bar and restaurant are being added to that area, The Morning Call reported. Brookside also plans to add two indoor tennis courts and four pickleball courts.

DellaSala told The Morning Call the work will be completed in stages.

“Some of the work had already been approved by the members, and we spent some early dollars to get things started,” he said. “Our goal is to continue on the golf course as soon as they can start this spring, and we plan to have the golf course done by the beginning of next spring.”

Additionally, paperwork has been submitted to begin work on the pool bar and restaurant and the goal is to have that completed by the Fourth of July, The Morning Call reported.

The pickleball courts are scheduled for completion this summer, DellaSala told The Morning Call, and work on the tennis multipurpose structure will likely start in the fall. The banquet area and restaurant construction will begin in 2024.