Winnipeg's Golf Courses: Action Items Part I

In the last golf post we established that Winnipeg Golf Services was, financially speaking, in a death spiral to hell, and that drastic action needs to be taken. Here are the actions:

1) sell Crescent Drive

I would have said "plow it over" except that a ballyhooed Nordik spa has already planned to move in this year, leveraging the golf course to complete it's spa/nature concept. It would be unfair to plow it over without offering them the opportunity to purchase the course. It is also unfair to city taxpayers to subsidize an unprofitable golf course for the benefit of another party. Therefore, the City should attempt to sell the course to the spa promoters or franchise owners.

2) blow up the obsolete public courses

I'm talking to you, Kildonan Park and Windsor Park. Even if you were to pump millions of dollars into restoring these courses to a reasonable condition, they will never be profitable because they are poorly designed and lacking amenities like a driving range, decent putting/chipping area and a proper club house.

Yes, there was a time when they could get away with it, but that time is gone. There is more competition now. The Meadows, Southside Golf Centre, and even Fantasy Lakes have all been built in the last 5 years or so, and provide golf experiences that are superior in their own way to the two city courses mentioned here. That leaves us with no choice but to blow up the courses.

Kildonan Park
Kildonan Park Golf Course, as you might have guessed, is right beside Kildonan Park. An organization like OURS Winnipeg might therefore suggest merging the whole space into the park, which would more than double the size of the current park. Would it double the enjoyment of the park? Probably not. Would it double the cost of the park? I suspect so, but that's not the big cost .. the big cost is the opportunity cost of forgoing other land uses, like infill development.

At the same time, we here at the Peanut are tree-huggers and like our greenspace. I personally am a fan of reclaiming our riverbanks, and am a little bit jealous of those cities that kept them as public spaces. Therefore I present the following compromise:


Extend Kildonan park along the river, up to the natural escarpment that runs through the golf course. Above the escarpment, develop it into residential housing, maybe with a few condos in the mix. I would prefer no commercial development, although I will allow the A&W on the 7th tee box to stay.

Windsor Park
There is no Windsor Park next door to this golf course, so I guess in this case the "park" refers to the course itself. But I'm not here to nitpick on the name, I'm here to tell the City what to do after we blow up the golf course.

But before I do that, I need to talk about St.Boniface golf course which is attached to Windsor Park. The two should not be looked at in isolation because the value of the two together is potentially greater than the sum of the two apart.

3) blow up St.Boniface

The golf course, not the area of Winnipeg. It's actually not a bad golf course and could be sold off, but developing Windsor Park on it's own is a little awkward because of how it's positioned. You can't make use of the lights at Cottonwood because that would bump you right in to an existing bay in Niakawa Park. Autumnwood dies at the railway track. The best way to get into that area is by extending Elizabeth Rd. across Archibald at the existing traffic lights, through the St.Boniface golf course. You just have to plow through the cemetery keeper's house first, but we'll be sure to replace it with a better one.

Again, keep the land adjacent to the river banks as park space. Windsor Park is a popular skiing area in the winter, including Winnipeg's only lighted x-country ski trail. That could be re-routed all the way north past the cemetery, right through the St.B golf course territory, making for a longer trail with more tree shelter. Skiers rejoice! The end result would be something that looks like this:

Residential development would be in high demand, and would generate some pretty good property tax revenue. Ten minutes from downtown, on bus routes, and right next to a park. Sounds pretty good to me.

There are different sorts of residential development. There are low-rise condos à la south St.Annes or just about any area on the periphery of the city. There are clusters of look-alike stucco McMansions on curvy streets with small back yards and double garages sticking out front. Infill development, I think, should be more reflective of the surrounding area. If you've ever walked around in that little neighborhood just south of Marion and west of Archibald, you'll know that it's a pleasant area with generally well-kept, but small houses. That's what I have in mind for this area -- especially the north segment. Smaller scale builds of single family homes on straight streets to maximize density. Straight streets! Imagine that!

Okay, enough about that .. what else can we blow up? I'll tell you. Later. I'm going to have to divide this sucker up into more than one post, so hold tight and check back in a few days or so.