LYNNWOOD
If Lynn Sordel can persuade the City Council to see things his way, golfers may soon have access to rounds of the alcohol kind at the city’s golf course.
Sordel, the city’s Parks and Recreation director, says it’s time for the Lynnwood Municipal Golf Course to become profitable. He’s put together a five-year business plan he says will set the facility on the right course.
He says he has lots of support among golf aficionados and some early indications that Edmonds Community College, which shares space and some facilities with the golf course, backs the idea.
Some council members are wary of allowing beer and wine on the course.
“I have real concerns about alcohol on the golf course, mainly because of the location, also because it sets a precedent for alcohol in the parks system,” said Councilwoman Ruth Ross.
Alcoholic beverages have never been allowed on the 18-At
hole executive course, which opened in 1991. Sordel says Lynnwood’s is the only city-owned golf course in the Puget Sound area that forbids the sale of beer and wine.
Allowing beer and wine sales through a city-hired concessionaire, he said, would add tens of thousands of dollars in annual revenue to the golf course’s coffers and give the city much needed control over the use of alcohol on the 7-acre course. The course is set up to pay for itself without taxpayer dollars subsidizing it.
He said revenues have suffered in recent years as competition has increased. He pointed to figures showing that green fees dropped from $1,090,554 in 2002 to $980,348 in 2006. Though food and beverage sales, which consist mostly of chips and soda, have remained steady, they’ve been well below Everett’s Walter Hall Golf Course. That course in 2006 received $3.15 per round from food and beverage sales compared to 64 cents in Lynnwood, according to the business plan.
The plan projects revenues from concessions increasing from $30,566 in 2006 to $92,000 in 2008 and 2009 with the addition of beer and wine. Cash reserves would jump, according to the plan, from $173,448 in 2006 to $637,914 by 2012.
In November 2006, the council narrowly rejected an ordinance that would have allowed beer and wine sales beginning this year.
After rejecting the measure, the council told Sordel to come up with a plan to revive the facility, showing various alternatives.
In response, he put together the business plan. It calls for beefing up golf course fund reserves, first by breaking even from 2008 to 2010 with the sale of alcohol, then becoming profitable with the addition in 2010 of a brand new club house, maintenance facility, pro shop and restaurant. Today, the pro shop is housed on the first floor of the Triton Union Building, ECC’s student union, which has a cafeteria.
“What I told the council is I don’t want to have to come back to you and ask for a subsidy,” he said.
The long-term plan, what Sordel calls the “end game” for the golf course’s new business model, means reinvesting profits into the city’s various recreation and parks programs — everything from park equipment to youth programs and scholarships.
Councilman Mark Smith says he’s undecided on whether to allow beer and wine at the golf course. Last year, he echoed most of the concerns expressed by Ross and Councilwoman Lisa Utter.
“I’m eager to see what they bring forward,” Smith said. “I’m very supportive of their long-term vision for the parks. The golf course is one of the jewels of our parks system.”
Jenny Strock, secretary of the Lynnwood Ladies Golf Club, said it’s wrong to call the golf course a park.
“Most cities have changed the classification of their golf courses” she said. “They’re not really classified as parks anymore. They’re a pay-for-use facility.”
She said the word in the ladies golfing community is that Lynnwood’s behind the times when it comes to the kinds of amenities most courses offer. Fellow golfers around the Puget Sound region ask her at tournaments, “why don’t you have alcohol?” Strock said.
To build the new restaurant, pro club and maintenance facility, the city may work out a deal in which the college buys a city owned business park north of the golf course and the city’s share of the Triton Union Building, which consists mostly of the clubhouse space.
A new clubhouse, pro shop, maintenance facility and restaurant could be built on the site of the driving range, which the city closed Wednesday, Oct. 31.
And, because the 20-year bond used to build the golf course is nearing payoff, the golf course would be in a strong financial position to take on new bonded indebtedness to finance new capital projects, Sordel said.
He’s also spoken to college officials about the possibility of enlisting culinary arts students to oversee food service in the new facility.
Once those larger efforts come together, he said, “now you’re talking about becoming a major player in the tournament business.”
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