Renovations to River Bend Golf & Recreation Area rescheduled to 2025

Separated into short-, medium- and long-term goals, the total renovations for the course are estimated to cost around $9.3 million. Council approved last year $5.4 million in capital funding for the golf course’s short-term renovations.

Renovations were scheduled to begin in 2024 which would mean a closure for the season as the work is estimated to take one year to complete.

The City of Red Deer is the registered owner of the land at RBGRA but since its opening, the area has been operated by a third-party operator, the Society.

As a result, MacPherson says it was mainly the City’s decision to postpone the project by one year.

While he says the Society would have been ready to go this year, it worked in their favour to push the timeline as some contractual obligations, like the leasing of golf carts for example, are scheduled to end following the 2024 season anyway, plus the course is their main source of revenue.

Barb McKee, Recreation Superintendent for the City, said that while funds have been spent in 2023 for planning work, the 2024 date was not definitive for construction.

Apart from the Society’s contractual obligations that favoured remaining open for another season, she says from the City’s perspective with being in charge of project management, conversations with architects also leaned towards renovations beginning in 2025.

“Even as late as October, we thought we were in a really good place to go out to tender for the work and be able to have great competition for the project in 2024 but it became really obvious in the last few weeks that the contractors who do that type of specialty work have a lot of remaining commitments from 2023,” she said, adding that those projects seem to be spilling into 2024.

“It seems like it’s a long way out but when you’re contracting a project of that size, we really want to have a robust competition to make sure to have those contractors in place that can guarantee us our timeframe doesn’t interrupt more of the operations than necessary because their timeline might be extended,” she said.

She confirmed the project will be tendered in early 2024.

MacPherson says over half of the course’s renovations are towards a new irrigation system. With the course having opened in 1987, he estimates the system was installed in 1985, now reaching the end of its life cycle as most last between 25-35 years.

“The irrigation system is an unseen. It’s kind of like the engine in your car; if it’s running great, you don’t pay much attention to it, but when it’s not running great, it’s very noticeable. The irrigation system is a key component to all of this and without that we don’t have a golf course that’s able to be kept in very good condition,” he said.

Other renovations include modernizing five greens, their mini links area and driving range, as well as modifications and additions of tee box areas, to make the course more playable for all skill levels, he says.

He states RBGRA has seen an outstanding couple of seasons due predominantly to the nice weather. With 225 adult passes and 100 junior passes available, in five- or seven-day packages, sales begin on November 13 with similar prices, he adds.

He says that pass holders will be kept in the loop on where else they can golf during their closure.

“We will go to other golf courses in the area in central Alberta and let them know that we’ll be closed and there’s now 35-40,000 rounds of golf that need to go somewhere so hopefully they can capture some of that,” he said.

Medium- and long-term plans for the renovations include the development of a 19^th hole and improvements to the clubhouse.

Earlier this year, city council forgave a $1.5 million loan made to the Society that had been left unpaid for almost 20 years, deeming it “unusual” as the City owns the land.

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The full Master Plan can be read here.

by Alessia Proietti

Renovations to River Bend Golf & Recreation Area rescheduled to 2025

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