bubbleinfo.com

from the U-T:

Carlsbad’s new municipal golf course lost nearly twice as much money as was expected for its first year of operation, and taxpayers will be asked to chip in $1.6 million for the course in 2009.

The course, The Crossings at Carlsbad, was projected to lose $893,428 in 2008, an amount the council approved last year. That loss ballooned to $1.6 million, however, and the budget projects a similar loss in 2009.

The course made less money than projected – $6.4 million as opposed to $6.6 million – and cost more to operate – $5.9 million as opposed to $5.6 million.  City Finance Director Lisa Irvine said the course breaks even on operations, but the city charges the construction bond payments and the cost of establishing native habitat to the golf course budget.

“If it didn’t have this debt and didn’t have this habitat, this should be self-sustaining,” Irvine said.

The city was required to set aside half of the golf course’s 400 acres as habitat, which cost nearly $600,000 to establish in 2008. The 2009 budget includes $514,000 for habitat.

The debt payment is $1.1 million a year on $18.5 million in construction bonds.

The staff report on the golf course budget notes that fewer people are playing golf in the recession, and that is pulling down revenue.  However, Irvine said the restaurant on the grounds, Canyons, is still drawing customers and is doing well, offsetting some of that decline.

Irvine said the council is being asked to pay $1.6 million from the city’s general fund reserve to cover the course’s losses, so that will not affect the city’s daily operations.

The City Council will address the golf course’s 2009 budget at its meeting Tuesday.

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The Crossings ranked in Golf Magazine’s Top Ten of new public courses:

http://www.golf.com/golf/gallery/article/0,28242,1690265-10,00.html

But it should be ranked high - it cost $70 million, about twice as much as any other public course in the history of building public courses (and they financed $18.5 million?).

“With all of the major golf manufacturers located here … we view Carlsbad as the golf capital of the world,” said Carlsbad Mayor Bud Lewis. “We are proud that in its inaugural year, The Crossings at Carlsbad is not only representative of who we are as a community, both in the quality of the course and its clubhouse, but also lives up to the area’s reputation for golf excellence.”

Posted on Sunday, December 14th, 2008 at 7:48 AM in Local Government | 7 Comments » |  Print You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.