An expanded driving range with a natural turf\/grass surface, new poles and netting and the demolition of the miniature golf course are part of the plans for the city-owned Riverbend Golf Complex.<\/p>\n
The Kent City Council’s Parks and Human Services Committee approved a $200,200 consultant contract on Feb. 21 with Seattle-based Broderick Architects for design services on the project, according to city documents.<\/p>\n
The total project is expected to cost an estimated $2.2 million and be completed in 2020. The city will pay for the project with proceeds from the $10.5 million sale of the former par 3 golf course to Auburn-based FNW Inc.\/Landmark Development Group. The developer is building the Marquee on Meeker mixed-use project that includes nearly 500 apartments along West Meeker Street, near the driving range and across from the 18-hole course.<\/p>\n
The city is using $6 million of the land sale for improvements at Riverbend and $4 million to pay off debt at the complex. Riverbend lost $65,572 in 2018 after averaging losses of about $300,000 per year. The closure of the par 3 course last April helped reduce costs in 2018. City staff expects Riverbend to make a profit in 2019.<\/p>\n
“This is going to be a tricky project, but it’s the driver in the Riverbend business plan to bring in significant revenue to take us into a profit margin,” Parks Director Julie Parascondola said to the committee about the driving range improvements.<\/p>\n
The consultant will help to make it less tricky as it coordinates with two adjacent City Public Works projects – expansion of the Signature Pointe Levee along the Green River and the Meet Me on Meeker street improvements.<\/p>\n
The design work on the driving range is expected to be done by September with construction to start after Labor Day, according to city staff.<\/p>\n
The major changes include:<\/p>\n
• Addition of 13 or 14 new driving stations to the east that connect to the existing 32 stations by a covered walkway<\/p>\n
• Replacing the synthetic turf range surface with natural turf\/grass<\/p>\n
• Upgrade to turf mats, new dividers with a place for clubs, new teak benches and new LED lighting<\/p>\n
• Sprucing up the main entrance and facade. Additional windows to look into the driving range, a fresh paint scheme, enhanced signage, landscaping and new lighting<\/p>\n
• Removal of the 18-hole miniature golf course to be replaced by a 9-hole course, east of the main entrance<\/p>\n
• Relocating the point of sale for the retail shop and driving range to provide better access to customers and control from the entry. To do this, a portion of the existing building – kitchen, restrooms and ball machine room would need to be demolished. New restrooms and a ball machine room would be incorporated into a west wing addition<\/p>\n
Half Lion Brewery aims for June opening<\/strong><\/p>\n The owners of Half Lion Brewery in Sumner signed their lease last week with city staff to open a new restaurant at the Riverbend Golf Complex, the second location for the group.<\/p>\n “They will be doing a ton of work – remodeling – and are shooting for test opening in May and a formal opening sometime in June,” said Parascondola, who added that liquor license and other permits could delay that time frame.<\/p>\n City staff and brewery owners hope to be open for a 30th anniversary celebration of Riverbend in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More stations, new surface <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":39371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-39370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39370"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39370"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=39370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}