News About the Golf Industry Archives

happy holidays from The Adventure Entertainment Cos.

Adventure Entertainment Cos. has new website.

The Adventure Entertainment Cos., an affiliate of StoneCreek Partners (“SCP”), has launched a new website at AEC Creative – in Beta form. Some of the client experience and specific projects that have been listed here along with SCP experience will be moved over to AEC Creative.

The Adventure Entertainment Cos. (AEC) is a conceptual design and project implementation company, focused on themed attractions, location-based entertainment, and outdoor recreation. AEC regularly collaborates with StoneCreek Partners during the project feasibility and conceptual design stages of client assignments, providing early “previsualization” of potential site organization, project massing and relative scale, and exploration of guest scripting and experience.

AEC has also established ventures with 3rd-party organizations for the operation of niche destination facilities in outdoor recreation (GoBOLD Adventures), creative campuses (Monumental Studios), and living stories (StagePlex). These new ventures are led by highly-experienced professionals in these industries, including Paul Bierman-Lytle, Justin Zoladz, and Robert “Bob” Johnson, among others. The purpose of Adventure Entertainment Cos. having a new website, is to prepare for more direct-to-consumer communications about these coming destination facilities. The Adventure Entertainment Cos. is committed to the creation of destination experiences for major project as well as smaller intra-regional locations, that combine the outdoor recreation, extreme sport, themed, and location-based entertainment industries.

Golf Courses Remain a Focus for Redevelopment

29.11.2020 News about economic development, News about global real estate consulting, News about outdoor recreation venues, News about redevelopment and regeneration, News About the Golf Industry, StoneCreek Partners News and Research

Golf courses remain a focus for redevelopment and repurposing as property owners explore greater highest-and-best use for their golf assets.

The interest in such redevelopment is straight-forward. Golf courses were overbuilt in the U.S. and in some global regions, and the 2008 recession decimated many golf owner’s financial resources. At the same time golf participation has steadily declined year over year, at least through 2019 (there is an exception in 2020 due to Covid-19). With this confluence of economic difficulties and ever-changing consumer preferences for their leisure-time activities, in many instances golf course assets offered a tantalizing opportunity for adaptive re-use and repurposing. For many cities and communities with increasing interest in local economic development and specific agendas such as affordable (if not more inclusionary) housing, these golf assets are particularly ripe for highest-and-best-use consideration.

The mega project proposed by Hines for Riverwalk Golf Course in San Diego, will likely spur even greater interest in golf course redevelopment. Golf courses are often situated within attractive residential communities, with reasonable roadway access and ingress/egress for feasible re-purposing as residential projects. Hines found such an opportunity with the Riverwalk site in a decidedly “best case” way – the Riverwalk golf course just happens to be so well-located within its region that it can support substantial mixed-use redevelopment. Hines has proposed such a mega redevelopment project there, which could see in excess of $1 billion in new development.

For more information about golf course redevelopment, we have started tracking such projects as part of our ongoing client project research. We expect golf courses to remain a focus for redevelopment, for some time to come. StoneCreek Partners also tracks other major real estate asset classes, with some of our research and tracking published here online. The link is available here:

Golf Course Redevelopment – the Latest

Planned Community Consultants - project feasibility consultants

Golf Participation Up 11% Over 2019

21.11.2020 Consumer Products Fresh Monitor, News about economic development, News about local government real estate, News About the Golf Industry, StoneCreek Partners News and Research

According to the National Golf Foundation, golf participation is up 11% over 2019. The U.S. data through October 2020, is now at 10.8% ahead of 2019’s pace despite losing 20 million rounds in the spring due to the Covid-19 lockdowns. In fact, October marked the fifth straight month that play has been up year-over-year in every state in the continental U.S. This increased play translates to roughly 39 million more rounds nationwide than a year ago.

Operating results for the U.S. golf industry represent a marked improvement over the generally dismal outlook that has existed for the past decade. The reduction in golf participation over the decade has caused an increase in golf course’s being redeveloped or repurposed to new use. Even with golf participation up 11% over 2019, more courses will proceed to partial or full redevelopment. Our golf course redevelopment tracking has started and we’ll begin reporting in January 2021.

According to the National Golf Foundation (“NGF”), in both 2009 and 2016, roughly a quarter of public courses admitted to being in bad shape, financially. Among private clubs, 21% were doing poorly in ’09, but seven years later that proportion had dropped to 14%. This year, there’s been a dramatic rise in the proportion of U.S. golf facilities reporting to be in good financial shape compared to previous NGF studies, including more than half of public courses and nearly 2/3 of private clubs. And, fewer than 1 in 10 (public and private combined) suggest that they’re currently in bad shape (0-4).

The National Golf Foundation article is based upon information from Golf Datatech’s monthly report. According to its website, Golf Datatech provides the golf industry with specialized market research covering retail sales, inventory, pricing and distribution, along with consumer attitude and usage studies and strategic sales and marketing consulting.

The full article by National Golf Foundation about golf participation up 11% over 2019 (year over year), is available here:

Tracking the Impact of Covid-19 on the Golf Business – November 2020