F.C. Country Club members reject renovation plans

FORT COLLINS – Members of the Fort Collins Country Club shot down a proposed $2.5 million renovation of the club facilities by a three-to-one vote.
The board of directors spent three years compiling a plan for renovations to the golf course and the clubhouse. The architectural designs, which were budgeted into the board’s expenditures, cost about $40,000, according to Norm Nuwash, the club’s general manager.
The plans called for more than $2.5 million in expansions and renovations, including a golf course overhaul to the front nine and about 8,400 square feet of building additions.
It is impossible to pinpoint one reason for the membership’s rejection, especially with nearly 500 voting members all with their own opinions.
“Most of the members didn’t want to have just nine holes of golf for a year,” Nuwash said. “That was the major sticking point.”
The renovation process would have closed off half the golf course during the redesign of the holes. That was the major down point for Doug Markley, president of Markley Motors Inc. and club member.
The board said the decision to overhaul the golf course was a response to the growth of competition in the area.
“We recognize the competition that’s here and the competition that’s coming,´ said Nuwash prior to the vote.
By doing the project all at once, the board could save 30 percent to 50 percent of the cost.
A month prior to the vote, Markley said he was “preliminarily” in favor of the renovations.
“I was pretty neutral,” he said of the actual vote. “There were parts of the project I liked and parts I didn’t like.”
Markley said he didn’t think all of the building expansions and renovations – totaling at about $1.6 million – were necessary.
“I hope we continue to improve the club,” he said.
Markley would still like to see parts of the project implemented. But that might not happen anytime soon, according to Stuart MacMillen, president of the board for the past three years and a partner at Everitt Commercial Partners.
“We’re going to shelve the strategic plan and the improvements,” he said. “There are no plans at this time to bring it back to the membership for a vote.”
The cost of the project was another issue for many members.
“If we had unlimited money, (the renovations) would be fine,´ said Jack Vahrenwald, club member and partner at Allen, Vahrenwald & Johnson LLC.
Vahrenwald said not only would the closure of the front nine be an economic hardship, but also the amount of money to be spent on building expansions and remodels was too much. He said for the use that the clubhouse gets, the renovation plans were too extreme.
“I think the board lost the pulse of the membership,” he said.
Nuwash explained that the membership voted against the mortgage, and not necessarily the improvements. According to the club’s bylaws, a majority vote is needed to increase the club’s debt.
“The membership was pretty clear that they don’t want (to increase the debt),” he said.
However, MacMillen said the vote was for the mortgage and the improvements, as the two issues went hand in hand.
Either way, an increase in the debt would have directly affected the current and future members.
An increase in monthly dues would have offset the increase in debt – the increase would have more than doubled the current debt. A monthly dues increase of up to $30, depending on the member’s status, would have gone into affect this month if the membership had approved the renovations.
Members would have had the option of making a lump payment of $5,150 – payable in two payments of $2,575 each. With a $30 monthly dues increase, it would take almost 11 years to pay the equivalent of the lump amount.
With all other improvements completed, such as those to the tennis courts and swimming pool, there are no other projects planned for the club for the next year.
“It’ll just be business as usual,´ said Nuwash.