AURORA | The Centre Hills beginner golf course will close in July and residents will be asked in the coming months for ideas about how to reuse the open space, a majority of Aurora City Council members agreed at a council meeting May 20.
Centre Hills Par 3, a nine-hole golf course at 16300 E. CentreTech Pkwy., has been losing money for seven years and would require a $400,000 water irrigation project to stay open, city staff said at the meeting.
Council members Molly Markert and Bob Broom opposed the closure, saying the golf course is the city’s only true practice course and money can be found in the city budget to keep it open.
“Half a million dollars for something for our citizens I think is an asset that should be preserved,” Markert said.
The golf course could be repurposed into a disc golf course, a walking and jogging path with exercise stations, a mountain bike course, or an off-leash dog area, according to city documents.
The city will take suggestions from the public over the coming months before it makes a final decision on how to reuse the golf course.
Tom Barrett, director of the city’s Parks, Recreation and Open Space department, said the golf course has made money only once in the past seven years. The city’s Golf Enterprise doesn’t have money to pay for the $400,000 capital project needed to keep the golf course open, Barrett said.
“It’s in the best interest of the golf fund to close the course and repurpose it into something else that would require less expense and less operational impact,” he said.
The golf course opened in 1988 and was built as a teaching facility. It has been watered in the past using a combination of captured storm water and reuse water, according to city documents. City water officials say state laws prohibit mixing of the two water sources, and reuse water can’t be used anymore without a $400,000 pond renovation project to contain the water.