Big donation from private donor spurs Warm Springs golf course changes. What’s coming?

After 50 years with two double-wide trailers serving as the golf clubhouse at Boise’s Warm Springs Golf Course, a major donation from a local resident is spurring a redevelopment of the clubhouse into a new golf building and events center.

David Hendrickson has agreed to donate $3.5 million to help rebuild the clubhouse, according to the City Council’s agenda for its Tuesday, Feb. 7, meeting. Hendrickson is the same person who donated Quail Hollow Golf Course to the city in 2013. He committed to making the Warm Springs donation in early 2022.

The entire project is expected to cost $9.6 million, according to an estimate from Insight Architects and Wright Brothers Construction. The city also has $2 million in a golf course reserve account, Doug Holloway, the city’s parks director, told the council Jan. 31.

The city expects to pay the remaining $4.1 million in the 2024 fiscal year, which begins in October, with a plan to recoup the costs from user fees over the next decade, Holloway said.

A design of the renovated clubhouse includes a restaurant, patio, golf pro shop, covered golf cart barn and indoor-and-outdoor seating capacity for 200 people. The new building would be constructed close to the Greenbelt, but on the west side, and the existing clubhouse would become a parking lot, Holloway said.

”We believe that this is more than just a clubhouse that golfers will utilize, it’s actually a city facility,” Holloway said.

He added that the city analyzed whether it would be more cost-effective to run the food operations in-house or contract with someone else, and found no significant difference over the long term.

On Jan. 31, the council requested that staff plan to incorporate the needed funds into the 2024 budget.