Twenty years ago, a public golf course in East Portland was the linchpin for a deal that got Metro into the parks business.
Two decades later, Metro is re-evaluating the 242-acre Glendoveer Golf Course site, which includes two 18-hole golf courses, a tennis center, a restaurant and the agency's most popular trail.
Agency representatives have been holding open houses, conducting surveys and analyzing the site ahead of a coming re-negotiation of Glendoveer's contract. At a work session Thursday, Metro councilors learned that the options for the site are endless – but even the simplest renovation is likely to have a hefty price tag.
"For the most basic scenario," said Metro project manager Corie Harlan, "the cost estimate we have is significant."
About $4 million in improvements are needed at Glendoveer, Harlan said. Expensive repairs to the irrigation system, including a leaky water tower are one big-ticket item. Parts of Glendoveer aren't up to code, and the facility has Americans with Disabilities Act compliance issues.
And while Glendoveer is a cash-generating facility – Metro made about $840,000 from the facility last year – most of that money has historically supplemented the agency's general fund.
A little history
Joe Hickey has been working at Glendoveer at 22 years. Originally a member of the grounds crew, Hickey now is the general manager of Glisan Street Recreation, the company that has held the operations contract since the late 1970s.
The company, often referred to as GSR, is in charge of the operations expenses of the course. While GSR is writing an $840,000 check to Metro every year, it's profiting about $200,000, Hickey said.
Glendoveer has always been a gravy train.
In 1992, Metro-region voters rejected a $200 million ballot initiative to start a regional parks system. Part of the reason, according to conventional wisdom, was that Metro had never built, nor maintained, a park.
About the same time, Multnomah County was looking to get out of the parks business, and the county-owned Expo Center was in need of repair. The county and Metro worked out a deal to transfer Blue Lake and Oxbow parks, the Gleason and Chinook Landing boat launches, the Expo Center, the county's pioneer cemeteries and Glendoveer to the regional government; the transfer of Glendoveer was key to making sure the penciled out financially for Metro.
In 2001, the operations contract was set to expire; Hickey said he put $1.1 million in improvements into the course in exchange for a 10-year contract extension.
Comparatively, it was a sweetheart deal for the agency. Portland Parks and Recreation has five 18-hole golf courses; in the 2008-09 fiscal year, they combined for $8.4 million in revenues. After expenses, the parks bureau sent about $1 million out of the golf budget for other programs.
The two courses at Glendoveer combined for about $2.5 million in revenue in 2010; Metro gets 44 percent of the green fee revenue, which is where the $840,000 comes from.
"It's pretty much a cash cow," Hickey said.
Slogging through Camp Glendoveer
But Metro has consistently put that money toward its $104 million general fund; in the meantime, Glendoveer has suffered.
The trail is muddy. The "golf product," Harlan said at the Tuesday work session, has deteriorated. "Glendoveer," she said, "is declining far more steeply than our competition."
Metro Council President Tom Hughes recounted a recent round at the course. "It was two runs through the washer," Hughes said, to get his clothes clean.
Metro held a series of listening sessions in April to hear from frequent users about what they'd like to see improved at the facility.
One woman talked about leaks at the tennis center.
"When we get a hard, driving rain, it gets flooded," the woman said. "I couldn't begin to tell you how many times the court's been totally unplayable because the steps on one end are like a waterfall."
Even when it's not raining, the buildings show their age. The acrid smell of ancient cigarette smoke still lingers in the clubhouse, years after Oregon's indoor smoking ban went into effect. And the aesthetics?
"It looks like a National Guard camp," said Metro Councilor Barbara Roberts, herself the commander in chief of the Oregon National Guard when she was governor. "They have the best onion rings in town, but I don't want to go to a National Guard camp and have onion rings."
The number of rounds played at Glendoveer has dropped sharply the last few years; golf rounds are down across the region, but a spike in 2009 at other courses wasn't matched at Glendoveer. Metro's course just hasn't kept up with the competition.
That's not to say the conditions at Glendoveer are the only reason for the decline. The economy certainly contributed.
And, there's been a demographic shift, Hickey said. "The baby boomers make golf, and the X and Y generations didn't take it up as fervently. The East County's (economy has) gone downhill. It won't, in the next 15 years, get back to where it once was."
Is golf the right fit?
How have those demographics changed? From 2000 to 2010, the Census block groups around the course saw a 12 percent population gain; black and Hispanic populations grew by triple-digit percentages in that time. Age and income data from the 2010 Census are not yet available.
About 78,000 people live east of Interstate 205 and north of Division Street in Portland; the area has about 136 acres of parks (not including Glendoveer). By way of comparison, about 73,000 people live in North Portland; take out Delta and Kelly Point parks and the quadrant still has about 296 acres of park space.
Meanwhile, local soccer teams are conducting drills in the Glendoveer parking lot.
At Tuesday's work session, Councilor Rex Burkholder wondered if the current visioning process isn't the right time for a new vision altogether.
"I'd like to see us imagine a scenario that's not golf," Burkholder said. "We have 242 acres of greenspace in East Portland. What can we do with it?"
Metro parks director Paul Slyman said that's why the agency is taking a triple bottom line approach, so stakeholders and decision makers can determine what is most important for Glendoveer in the future – not just financially, but socially and environmentally, as well.
But Hughes said the financial aspect of the triple bottom line, and the revenue golf brings to Metro, might be too great to overlook.
"It's hard to think of a better use for the financial side of it than an enhanced golf experience," he said. Similar, nearby golf courses "that made physical improvements saw a return on that investment that was pretty good, and I don't know of any other uses… that provide that kind of return. So the social and environmental benefits we've gained from having that open space in that particular community, that has a dearth of open spaces, really is being compensated for by the activity that goes on in the golf courses."
Plus, Hughes said, the courses might have their fans.
"If you change it significantly they're going to be sharpening stakes and lighting torches," Hughes said. "You're taking away a use they value."
Roberts said the soccer team training in the parking lot made her question the demographics of age in the community, and how there is a change in how the active generation recreates.
"We don't want to invest $4-6 million in something that's going downhill, rather than something going uphill," she said.
With Glisan Street Recreation's contract to operate Glendoveer set to expire next year, Metro has an opportunity to re-envision the facility. Or, it could just make the millions in minimal upgrades and see how that affects bidding for the contract. Staff is expected to come back to the Metro Council next month for a recommendation on how to move forward.