Moore from the developer:
JDM Partners reveals proposed land use designation changes
JDM held its second meeting in less than a week Tuesday at the Wigwam to discuss details for its General Plan Amendment submissions.
The April 10 meeting discussed amendments 14-01 and 14-02. Both areas are on the west side of Litchfield Road, north of Wigwam Boulevard. The Tuesday meeting discussed amendments 14-03 and 14-04, involving the resort’s Gold and Blue golf courses.
GPA 14-03 would change the land use designation from golf course to resort for the land situated directly in the center of the current Gold Course with an outlet area leading to Old Litchfield Road.
The 14-04 submission would change the land use designation from golf course to medium density residential for the land in the middle of the Blue Course with an outlet leading to Dysart Road.
Both submissions call for development where the golf courses currently exist. JDM would build the structures and redesign the golf courses, JDM Chief Operating Officer Tom O’Malley said.
The applications were submitted because the Wigwam needs room to grow to compete with other high-end resorts in the Valley, O’Malley said.
“We’re very proud to tell you today that the Wigwam stands toe-to-toe with the absolute best resorts not only in Phoenix, but in the Southwest,” O’Malley said. “We have put the Wigwam at a place where it can compete with those facilities, but that’s not enough. I’d say the Wigwam is doing OK.”
O’Malley compared the number of Wigwam rooms to competing resorts across the Valley.
“We’re competing with hotels that have 800 rooms,” O’Malley said. “At 331, we’re the little runt on the block.”
To counter that disadvantage in competition, JDM is proposing putting in high-end residences, instead of strictly resort rooms, in the proposal areas that could be purchased by others, but still used as resort rooms while the owners are not there, O’Malley said.
“The answer is not to write a $30 million check and build 300 rooms that sit vacant eight months out of the year [non-peak time],” O’Malley said. “That’s not a viable business plan.”
The homeowners of the residential unit would let the Wigwam rent out the rooms when they weren’t there, and they would both split the revenue made from renting, O’Malley said.
“You build residences in a way that they are high-value, beautiful residences, and you sell them to people,” O’Malley said. “When they’re not here, they give them to the resort and the resort rents them to the guests and they share the revenue.”
They could be anything from townhomes, condominiums or single-family houses, O’Malley said.
Golf options
O’Malley said the biggest challenge is convincing the public that the golf course location is the best place to put the new developments.
“Trying to put them in a golf course is probably the single hardest thing I’ll ever do in my life,” O’Malley said.
The vacant land west of Litchfield Road is owned by JDM, but is not a viable option for resort expansion, O’Malley said.
“The west side is disconnected from the resort,” O’Malley said. “To us, that is the last place our guests are going to want to go. We don’t think those are salable at all.”
The golf course land was chosen because of the Wigwam’s abundance of courses, and the downturn of golf participation over the last few years, O’Malley said.
“In the industry of golf with fewer and fewer people playing, we have three golf courses we have to try and figure out how to fill up,” O’Malley said.
O’Malley said there has been more than a 10 percent decrease in the number of people playing golf.
While the Wigwam’s numbers have actually slightly improved over this time, JDM has to look at the big picture for participation trends, O’Malley said.
“We still have to be cognizant of a drastically changing golf course community and what the future of golf looks like,” he said.
JDM’s plan is to redesign both the Gold and Blue courses. The Blue Course would be a drastic redesign, going from a full-length championship course to a shorter, all-par-3 course that surrounds the new development.
An all-par-3 course would create shorter rounds for those who don’t have four or five hours to play golf in a day, O’Malley said.
“We have the opportunity to do something cutting edge and say, ‘let’s address the next generation of golfers,’” O’Malley said. “Courses that have one or two courses can’t afford to do that.”
‘Not in our backyard’
JDM understands that altering the Wigwam’s golf courses is something Litchfield Park residents will fight, O’Malley said.
O’Malley said the development would be constructed in such a way that anyone with a golf-course view from their home now would still have that view.
Some residents expressed frustration with the plan during the question-and-answer session of the meeting. JDM partner Mel Schultz said the plans and details are all part of a process that should be allowed to unfold more before final judgments are made.
“When we throw out some of these concepts and apparent conclusions, let’s do them with an understanding that this is a process and we are listening and your comments are more than important, they’re, at the end of the day, going to guide where we go,” Schultz said.
The details do not have to be agreed upon at this stage of the process, Schultz said.
“We gather for a purpose, and the purpose is understanding,” Schultz said. “It’s not to agree necessarily on the details, this is a process.”
The process will be complete in December, when the Litchfield Park City Council will vote on the General Plan Amendments.
The next meeting for the General Plan Amendment schedule will be held at 7 p.m. April 23, at the Litchfield Elementary School Cafeteria, 255 E. Wigwam Blvd.
Rick Hill will give a market analysis presentation to the City Council and the Planning and Zoning Commission for all six of the submissions.
Public meetings are scheduled next week for each of the submissions. The meetings will take place at 7 p.m. April 28, 29 and 30 at the Litchfield Elementary School Cafeteria.
JDM’s 14-01 and 14-02 submissions will be the topic of the April 28 meeting and 14-03 and 14-04 will be discussed April 29. Sun Health’s 14-05 and 14-06 submissions will be the topic of the April 30 meeting.
For detailed information on each General Plan Amendment submission, visit
www.litchfield-park.org and click on the link titled 2014 Major General Plan Amendment Applications and Meeting Calendar on the left side.