The youth program expects to spend approximately $450,000 to revamp its clubhouse space to make room for a pair of golf simulators and after-school space. Similar improvements made at another facility that it runs in the Richmond area helped to generate player traffic beyond the organization’s base of students.
The First Tee of Greater Richmond (Va.) is eyeing another round of renovations at one of its venues and has already begun to line up funding for the project, Richmond BizSense reported.
The organization is planning to revamp parts of its 18-hole facility in Chesterfield, Va., BizSense reported.
The planned work on the drawing board includes upgrading the course’s clubhouse by reshaping the interior of the building to make room for two golf simulators and after-school space for First Tee participants, BizSense reported.
“It will be less ‘golf-shoppy’ and more of a space where our patrons and participants can feel comfortable, hang out and a place we can meet to have classroom time,” First Tee CEO Brent Schneider said of the project.
The clubhouse upgrades will be similar to those made earlier this year at The First Tee’s six-hole course in Richmond, where the simulators and the revamped short course have proved to be a driver for player traffic beyond the organization’s base of students, BizSense reported.
“We’ve had a really nice return on investment, with the public being able to come out and use our facilities,” Schneider said.
The project is expected to cost $450,000, which will be paid for largely by donations, BizSense reported. The nonprofit organization began showing the concept to some of its key donors in recent weeks and found enough interest to get the project moving.
“I’ve got a commitment that’s substantial that’s going to allow us to move forward with the project,” Schneider said.
Interior design firm Flourish Spaces is handling design, but The First Tee has yet to hire a general contractor, BizSense reported.
Schneider said he expects it to be an eight-week project once work begins, and the hope is to be finished sometime in the first quarter of 2019.
Upon announcing the renovation plan, the organization also renamed the complex as The Tattersall Youth Development Center at The First Tee Chesterfield Golf Course, BizSense reported. That’s in honor of Fred Tattersall, who helped to establish the First Tee chapter in the region in 1998 and has been a major benefactor through the years.
“He was our Board President for 17 years and one of our founders,” Schneider said of Tattersall. “He was kind of the backbone of First Tee locally.”
The First Tee of Richmond offers life-skills experience programs, with golf as a part of the curriculum, and also brings other nonprofits, such as the Boys and Girls Club, to its facilities. And it has implanted golf as part of the physical education curriculum at dozens of elementary schools around the region, BizSense reported.
The Richmond unit of the national organization operates with a $2.5 million annual budget, BizSense reported, and about 25 percent of that is derived from revenue at its two courses.
Beyond the interior improvements at the Chesterfield clubhouse, Schneider said TheFirst Tee may eventually look to make upgrades to the course similar to those it made in the city, BizSense reported.
The organization recently made $1.2 million in upgrades to its Richmond course’s turf and driving range, including installing Bermudagrass greens, BizSense reported. While some of that turf was hit hard by an uncooperative Mother Nature, forcing First Tee to replant the greens this summer, they’ve since grown back and the course is back to business as usual, Schneider said.