The Board of Park Commissioners recommended last week that new driving ranges, club house, cart barns, perimeter trails, cart paths and maintenance facilities be installed at the West Seattle Golf Course as part of the update of the Seattle Parks and Recreation Golf Master Plan.

“What we started doing in October was work with the golf steering committee and looking at the 1991 Master Plan and updating that with the 2005 Golf Financial Analysis Plan,” said Susanne Friedman, a project manger with the parks department. “This plan brings it into this decade and this plan is really focused on the capital improvements over course layout.”

The parks department operates the Interbay Golf Center, Jackson Park, Jefferson and West Seattle Golf Courses.

Six main priorities that were being looked into for the Golf Master Plan update were remodeling or building new club houses; looking at driving ranges; on-course restrooms; electric cart barns and paths; perimeter trails; and maintenance facilities.

After the draft Master Plan was presented to the board on Feb. 12 and the draft Financial Plan and staff recommendations were presented on March 12, the staff-recommended action was to move forward with implementation of Option II.

Option II costs less, at $19.9 million, than the full master plan that totaled $29.8 million, which would also require $6 million in other funding sources to implement the entire plan and projects at once.

Since then four new funding scenarios had been examined. All options varied in spreading out planning, design and construction over a five to six year period and which projects would or would not be included at each course.

On April 23, the board recommended that the parks department superintendent approve the option that included new or updated driving ranges in West Seattle, Jefferson and Jackson Park; new club houses and cart barns; perimeter trails and cart paths (including Interbay) and a maintenance facility in West Seattle.

“We did a lot of background analysis at what the market could bare and had public meetings, four open houses and talked to the broad community, not just golfers, about what they thought about the proposals and we created the draft plan,” Friedman said.

Friedman said that planning, design and construction would take place between now and 2016, once they get executive approval. Staff is now looking at how they can finance these improvements through existing golf revenue.

“If you talk to any golfer they are pretty excited because they’ve been waiting a really long time for this,” Friedman said.