More than a year after the Concord City Council put off a vote on the Beaver Meadow clubhouse to develop more options, city proposals and flaring tensions have boxed the debate back into a starkly similar binary: all or nothing.
Project supporters have stood behind the proposal for a new building, with its expanded floor plan and $8 million price tag, seeing it as a worthy investment in a dear city amenity. Some repairs are pressing, and the city manager’s office has advised that the lesser revenues and construction interruptions of renovation options are financially unwise.
Vocal opponents reject the need for the project or argue that even the least expensive of the options is an extravagance that taxpayers cannot afford. It’s too much money for a facility that a tiny fraction of the city will use, they’ve argued, no matter how many times people try to paint it as a “community center.”
Since the clubhouse was not scheduled for a hearing Monday night, no members of the public were allowed to speak on it, but a flood of written comments were submitted in advance of the meeting. About three-quarters of the more than 40 letters submitted to the city opposed the clubhouse expansion or demanded councilors hit the breaks, especially amid an ethics complaint targeting one of the committees recommending new construction.
As the plans to tear down the old clubhouse at the city-owned course and build anew were discussed again, a handful of first-term councilors sought other ways forward, asking new questions about building options not presented by city staff or its contractors.
No action was planned or taken Monday on the project — it’s one of several major capital items, including a more than $40 million new police station, that will be up for debate in the 2026 capital budget come May — but the discussion was the most involved public consideration of the project the full council has had since December 2023.
Following the council’s direction
Due to a lack of maintenance, the building has a leaking roof and a “litany of mechanical issues,” including in the kitchen, and “something needs to happen over there one way or another,” Deputy City Manager Brian LeBrun told councilors.
Ward 2 Councilor Michele Horne wanted to know why things had gotten so bad and why a more modest renovation wasn’t possible.“How would I convince constituent that we are wisely going to spend seven or eight million of your dollars and not let this happen again?” she asked.
The city pushed off repairs on the building, LeBrun, City Manager Tom Aspell and other councilors explained, because past city councilors told them to.
Specifically, the city was looking at new windows and external repairs around five years ago. The price tag for that came in higher than expected, and city council, led by then-mayor Jim Bouley, opted instead to stop investing in the structure in favor of considering a wholesale vision for the building.
“We have only done the things that we had to do in order to keep the building going because it didn’t make a lot of sense to put good money after bad if there was going to be a major construction project,” LeBrun said. “We’ve been following the council’s direction.”
The three advisory committees who backed the new construction plan were in part swayed by input from city staff and contractors that renovating, with or without an addition, didn’t make much sense. The course would lose money from an interrupted season of golf and the building’s bad bones – dating to 1967 – and code violations meant they’d be in for major work.
Exploring other options
Ward Seven Councilor Jim Schlosser asked if the city could pursue new construction that costs less than $8 million. Specifically, he asked, “something like a $5 million new building, where we would maintain the revenues the benefits of have using the current building while you’re building but not necessarily have it double the square footage?”
That would be possible, LeBrun said, but they hadn’t studied it because it would take away from the restaurant, nordic skiing and simulator capacity they were asked to include in a new design.
“We can do that,” LeBrun said. “That wasn’t the charge we were given.”
At-Large Councilor Judith Kurtz wondered if phased new construction would be feasible, blunting the cost impact while delaying less essential functions like an event space.
It would be possible, Aspell said. But it would carry costs, both financial and programmatic.
“You could figure out a way to do that,” he said. “You think you’re going to save money over a 20-year horizon — it’s really going to cost you more. But if that’s all you can stomach at the time… maybe that’s what you have to do.”
Like other amenities that aren’t legally required services such as pools, parks, libraries, the free bus system, the airport and the arena, Aspell advised, the golf course is something Concord leaders have over time found to be worth investing taxpayer money in. Going beyond what’s pursued in other cities has been part of the city’s brand.
“These are your values,” Aspell said. “These are the things that make Concord not Franklin and not Manchester and not Nashua…how many others have six pools and a splash pad this side of the Mississippi? Nobody.”
‘Crusade against it’
As the proposal for a new clubhouse returned to the council, a vocal group of residents has rallied against it, including Marcy Charette, a resident who filed the ethics complaint and who has proposed the city transition the course into a park.
“There are many more potential projects facing this city that deserve and require our investment,” wrote Devin Rodrique of Penacook. “The terrible coincidence that during the same evening there will be a presentation on homelessness speaks for itself. Please do not support or pass the golf course clubhouse concept of anything costing more than $1 million. Our property tax burden is already high enough.”
Dozens of others echoed a similar sentiment.
Some councilors criticized the pushback.
“There’s an organized effort to really torpedo this whole golf course,” At-Large Councilor Fred Keach said. “It’s a crusade against it.”
Ward Nine Councilor Kris Schultz saw the objections differently.
“I think it’s incredibly unfair… to undermine the questions that are legitimate,” she said. “People have a right to question any project, to judge any expense that looks large, especially when they’re suffering — you know, a lot of people are suffering economically and I don’t think it’s going to get any better.”
In support, resident Barbara Johns described the course as both an accessible springboard for aspiring golfers and a beneficial communal space.
“To have a facility to provide a better space for the year round use of all of these events and sports would serve so many of the Concord residents,” Johns wrote. “It isn’t just a golf course, this is sports center, a meeting place, a place to grab a bite to eat and often a place where charity events take place and even some business.”
Despite the ethics complaint, Mayor Byron Champlin said Monday that there would be no pause in the city’s plans. The clubhouse and its expense is expected to be decided as part of the city’s budget process.
“If we delayed this until the ethics board met in April,” he said. “This would serve as a precedent to allow people to use complaints to the Board of Ethics to delay any variety projects or to hamstring any number of councilors.”
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