A member of city council wants to make sure that the construction of a new clubhouse at Roseland Golf in Windsor is separate from any proposal for a residential development at the site.
During the Monday, September 22 meeting, council will be asked to direct administration to enter a contract with Sterling Ridge to begin demolishing the former clubhouse this fall, at a cost of just over $2.5 million.
Council is also being asked to endorse the conceptual design vision for the proposed clubhouse redevelopment that was displayed during a public open house this past July.
Ward 1's Fred Francis has concerns over a section of the administration report that details the next steps, if the demolition and conceptual designs are approved, that calls for an expression of interest being issued for the construction of a new clubhouse and residential development.
In March 2024, the city announced a plan to increase housing and optimize city-owned properties as part of the Housing Solutions Made for Windsor, which included a residential development and new clubhouse on a section of the existing parking lot and clubhouse property at Roseland.
The proposed plan called for the development of a 38-unit luxury condo building with a green roof, underground parking, tiered levels, glass railings, and balconies.
"This has nothing to do with a residential development; this is strictly about a clubhouse," he says. "We have the conceptual drawings, we have the approved budget, and we have the approval of the board of directors. What the city council should be dealing with is an expression of a tender, issuing a tender to get the work done. We shouldn't be looking at an expression of interest tied into a housing development."
The clubhouse was built in 1978 but has not been used since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
Francis says the new residential development, if it even happens, needs to cross several barriers.
"If you're putting out an expression of interest in the hopes you're going to see economies of scale, that you're going to save money based on getting one person to do something twice. That one person might wait to do everything at one time, but waiting might hurt the golf operation, which we don't want to do," he says.
Francis says the two projects should be dealt with separately.
"A clubhouse is a clubhouse; a residential development, if it even happens, is a residential development. They shouldn't be one and the same; they should be treated separately," he says. "If we're going to build a clubhouse, then let's build a clubhouse. If one day, maybe-I don't even know if it's going to happen-you build a residential development, you deal with it then."
Roseland is an 18-hole golf course designed in 1926 by renowned golf course architect Donald J. Ross and constructed in 1927. The course itself was designated under the provisions of the Ontario Heritage Act in 2003.
The course is located at 455 Kennedy Drive West.