Getting into the golf business will be a hard sell to taxpayers, the Oro Valley Parks Advisory Board says.
The board spent hours Tuesday night discussing the town’s plan to buy the El Conquistador Country Club with its 45 holes of golf for $1 million and turn it into a community center and recreation center. Town leaders plan to pay for the project with a new half-cent sales tax.
The parks board voted 5-1 to advise the Town Council to go ahead with the purchase — without the golf business.
“We really wish we could get these wonderful facilities at a cheap cost and dump the golf courses,” board member Dana Hallin said.
The town recently surveyed residents about what kinds of parks and recreation facilities they wanted. People asked for ball fields and playgrounds, not golf, Hallin said.
Golf ranked just above ziplining near the bottom of the survey, noted board member Adam Wade.
“Our constituents don’t want golf courses,” he said.
The town proposes to buy the country club and golf facilities from HSL Properties, which is going to buy the Hilton Tucson El Conquistador resort. HSL wants to sell the country club and golf courses as a package, said Town Manager Greg Caton.
The town wouldn’t consider the deal if it were just for the golf courses, but it wants the country club for a community center, and it’s not possible to buy the center without the golf business, Caton told the board.
Caton said it would cost about $8 million to operate and renovate the country club and golf courses over 5 years. Building a new community center would cost up to $30 million, he said.
With another interested buyer waiting in the wings, the Town Council is expected to vote on the acquisition and the tax next week.
NARANJA PARK PLAN CHANGES
The town has been working on a conceptual plan for Naranja Park, which would become the central park of Oro Valley.
The draft plan had included a community center and tennis courts, but the town is changing the plan to include assumptions that those facilities would be available at the Conquistador property.
The parks board approved a new vision for the park that includes a super-flexible, air-conditioned, 42,000-square-foot building.
It would be “a hub of the Oro Valley community,” project consultant Don McGann told the parks board. The building could hold events as varied as indoor sports, vendor fairs, quilt shows, car shows, farmers markets and festivals. Outside the building would be a large playground and splash park, a plaza and lawn, and a ramada for bicyclists.
The Naranja Park plans also call for upgrades to existing archery facilities, more parking, six lighted multi-sport fields, four baseball fields, sand volleyball courts and a skate park. And the plan includes playgrounds, ramadas, restrooms and an amphitheater with capacity for 3,000 people.
There hasn’t been a cost estimate for the plan, and the town so far hasn’t identified a funding source, although it proposed to include $10 million for Naranja Park in the county’s future bond election.
Hallin worried the spending on the Conquistador project could jeopardize the Naranja Park project. She wondered whether town residents might be more interested in seeing the revenue from the proposed half-cent sales tax fund the Naranja Park project instead of the Conquistador project.
But Caton said the Naranja Park project would complement — not compete with — the Conquistador project.
