After more than a year of often contentious public debate, the City Council on Nov. 5 agreed to enter into a contract that will allow TopGolf to build a $20 million high-tech driving range, lounge, restaurant, and corporate meeting facility at the city-owned The Lakes in El Segundo golf course.
The council voted 3-2 in favor of an agreement that will initially bring the city $425,000 annually and add 100 to 120 fulltime jobs and another 60 to 80 part time jobs. Mayor Bill Fisher and council members Dave Atkinson and Marie Fellhauer voted for the agreement, while council members Suzanne Fuentes and Carl Jacobson voted in opposition.
The vote followed more than four hours of public discussion and 16 public meetings regarding the topic over the last 16 months. Strong opposition emerged from users of the decidedly more low-tech existing driving range, including a Save the Lakes at El Segundo Facebook page and website. Concerns centered on losing the family atmosphere of the current driving range, decreasing its usefulness for serious golfers, increasing user costs, and allegations that TopGolf would function largely as a bar catering to a young drinking demographic.
Fisher said he was disappointed at the tactics used by opposition that created an image of TopGolf directly counter to reality.
“The reason why I want to do this, folks, is families,” he said. “The second reason is for families. And the third reason is for families.”
The mayor said a small group had “hijacked the process” and spread misinformation about a facility that he argued would cater both to serious golfers and families, in addition to adding a significant draw as the city attempts to attract more businesses and serve its existing corporate culture.
“You talk about an economic development tool…this is one more amenity that will pull businesses into El Segundo,” Fisher said. “This is a huge amenity for our city.”
TopGolf is a Texas-based company expanding throughout the nation. Its concept originated in England in 1998 and involves a patented, high-tech reinvention of the traditional driving range – what one person described at the council meeting as a “game-ified” driving range. TopGolf uses microchip-embedded balls and field sensors to make a driving range into a game that tracks every shot a golfer makes. Additionally, TopGolf facilities include a social component, with as many as six players able to play together while being served food and drinks in a high-end lounge-style environment.
But that entertainment component has left some longtime Lakes supporters with the belief that their beloved hometown driving range will be rendered unrecognizable. The concept has at times been compared to a Hooters bar – at one point, the image of a woman in a bikini at a TopGolf facility was circulated, according to council members.
Fellhauer also took TopGolf opposition to task for its tactics, which she described as “disgusting.” She recalled growing so concerned at the negative information emanating from those opposing the proposed driving range that she and her husband – “on our own dime” – booked a trip to Houston, Texas, specifically to see a TopGolf facility up close. She didn’t tell anyone at that facility who she was, and came away deeply impressed by TopGolf’s operation.
“I walked in and as I looked around that facility, which was beautiful – all the wood and stone, so classy, the fire pits…” Fellhauer said. “I got there at 2 in the afternoon and it was about 80 percent full. I would say 30 percent of the people there were under the age of 5, who were there with their parents – parents taking kids during the day while their other kids were off at school. There were serious golfers there…and groups of corporate men and women. I mean, really, this is something we don’t want in El Segundo? Come on. I don’t see it….I am failing to see what the negatives are.”
Public testimony included much of the opposition that had been present throughout the city’s more than yearlong public input process. But for the first time, a significant number of people also appeared to speak in favor of TopGolf.
Mike Keller, a lifelong El Segundo resident and regular patron of The Lakes, said the issue boiled down to a single question to him.
“Is the status quo and current Lakes property worth enough so we can turn our backs on $20 million in the city of El Segundo and the creation of 100 paying jobs?” Keller asked. “Can we turn our backs and walk away from this opportunity? There are no other bids. This is one company looking at one city in the state of California to expand their operation. This is our opportunity to lose.”
Noah Yoseloff said TopGolf’s uniqueness, when added to Plaza El Segundo and nearby Manhattan Village, would help make the area a “mecca for entertainment and shopping.”
“It’s a place that caters to everybody….I think it would be best for our community as a whole,” he said.
El Segundo native Caitlin Scanlon said she attended school in Fort Worth and often went to TopGolf in Dallas. She said she was 27 and would love to bring her coworkers at W Promote to just such a facility.
“I can see my entire team going more than once a month to TopGolf,” she said. “My experience with going to TopGolf is it’s not the bar and party atmosphere some people think it is….I did learn how to golf at The Lakes. But for me, not being what you’d call a good golfer, it’s still fun to go to TopGolf with friends who are good and not feel like an idiot or that I don’t belong there.”
Debra Geist, a Manhattan Beach resident and regular patron of The Lakes who has been among the most staunch opponents of TopGolf, argued that the El Segundo was locking itself into a deal that TopGolf could escape – the lease is twenty years, with five optional six year extensions should the firm chose to stay – but the city could not opt out of.
“I just think it’s wrong to turn a public recreation facility into a bar,” Geist said. “But if you are going to do it, do it right.”
“Most importantly, the community won’t have a driving range,” added Geist, who also filed a cease and desist order claiming public meeting access laws had been violated during the city’s negotiations with TopGolf. “That’s just wrong.”
“You wouldn’t put a bar in the middle of Rec Park,” said Ken Joseph. “…You wouldn’t cover up Stevenson Field with a Bud Light sign. I mean, you’d be run out of town for that, with our baseball community. That’s the way our golf community feels about The Lakes.”
“Golf is a low-tech, simple game,” said Kelly Murphy. “It doesn’t need to be high-tech. You want high-tech golf, you do that in your living room with Playstation2. You don’t need this big thing.”
Fuentes, who along with Jacobson voted against the proposal, said that while she didn’t think TopGolf was anything like Hooters, she was uneasy with the financial risk and didn’t see enough potential payoff with a fixed lease in which the city didn’t stand to earn a percentage of TopGolf’s revenues.
“We have some of the most expensive real estate in the U.S. right here, and we are getting $425,000 – but we are not getting any success-sharing,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s a good enough deal,” she later added.
After the approval, the city and TopGolf will have a one year due diligence period in which details are worked out – including a redesign of The Lakes golf course to reconfigure the first hole into a parking lot yet maintain likely two “par 4” holes and add slope improvements and a water feature. A statement of shared values will also be included that encourages the retaining of existing employees and golf pro access. Construction is scheduled to begin in January, 2015, with the course closed four to six months and the range up to ten months.
Fisher said the deal represents a significant and positive change for El Segundo.
“It isn’t a bar or an arcade,” he said. “It’s a serious golfing facility that is pulling in golfers of all ages. When is El Segundo going to step out? Manhattan Beach is a beautiful city. When is El Segundo going to make its mark? This is when we are going to start doing that.” ER
