CRC Forum 12-13-14

If you missed the Center Building Committee Open Forum on Saturday it was attended by about 150 people, to many people’s surprise. After some introductory remarks from Committee Chair Dave Philippy, he mentioned that the construction manager would be the same firm as was used with South Cove (Milestone Construction?). Mr. Philippy indicated that they may be considering alternative locations, especially given the uproar from some Greensward residents when they found the building may be practically in their back yard. The Committee is communicating with the Board, with the golf committee, the golf pro, the restaurateur, the F&B committee, other committees, the staff and least of all with community members.  They plan to present the plans to the Board on Jan 16, begin construction in April 2015 and have the opening Memorial Day 2016 having had ONE so-called Forum.

The architect Jonathan Halle then took over the session.  His presentation pointed out that the new building will be built behind the existing building. This will allow the current building to continue to be used so as to keep the restaurant open and not affect the golf season. They want to site the building on the 18^th green destroying the green and its strategically located sand traps etc. This is not sitting well with homeowners whose properties are going to be 100-200 feet closer to the activities than they are now. They are concerned about their property values and their quality of life as well they should be. They may want to talk to the people in South Cove that lost their view of the lake when that building went up. Their property values went down too. Shortening the 18^th hole continues the trend to dummy down the golf course to a less challenging course after we’ve poured $4 million into the course including a previous change to the 18^th – a reduction of the mid fairway sand trap. (Is the committee also in golf course architecture?)

There was a lot of discussion on the size and location of the restaurant and kitchen but there is no restaurant consultant on board. Some people were unhappy with the expansion of the bar and the reduction of the fine dining area. The restaurant is a “clubhouse” restaurant. One resident wanted to know why an electronic survey could not be done to find out what people wanted. After a simple “no” answer, when pressed Dave Philippy said it was because the committee can’t agree with the Board how to phrase the questions(??) Is it because they don’t want to know the answers?

A number of times it was noted that the majority of residents wanted “such and such” and when pressed, based on what?  The “WHAT” turned out to be the majority wants of the committee. In sum, we are losing usable square footage from 77% (erroneously stated as 68% on the Committee’s spreadsheet) to 74% by tearing down the ECA offices and the existing Center (valued at $2 Million) in order to build a new Center that doesn’t really fix the stated shortcomings of the existing buildings and we will add a  $4000 mortgage to each owner for the privilege.