PARMA, Ohio -- City officials for decades have expressed a desire to replace the nearly 100-year-old Parma-owned Ridgewood Golf Course clubhouse with a new, modern facility that better services golfers and community members alike.
That talk could become a reality, with City Council currently considering an application for Cuyahoga County grant funds that, if approved, would be used to demolish the facility.
“We’ve been Band-Aiding that building for more than 20 years,” Mayor Tim DeGeeter said. “We’ve been living on borrowed time for a number of years.
“We replaced a boiler a couple of years ago. We’re way past wanting to put additional money into it. Now is the time to look at it and see what we can do.”
Ridgewood Golf Course clubhouse in Parma. (John Benson/cleveland.com)
The mayor said a lot of the discussion is preliminary, without dollar amounts attached to the new grant, the demolition costs or the new facility construction price tag.
Ridgewood Golf Course General Manager and PGA professional Dave Chuba said the popular Parma course has made more than $340,000 in profits over the last three years.
“This has been done even with the inadequacies of current building facilities,” Chuba said. “A new events center would attract and benefit both non-golfers and golfers, as it would bring more events and activities to our facility.”
The mayor noted that despite the fact that the city doesn’t put any money into Ridgewood Golf Course marketing, the venue is profitable. More so, he said, long-time golfers have noted that the course itself has never looked better.
Ridgewood Golf Course clubhouse in Parma. (John Benson/cleveland.com)
“We’ll be collaborative on this moving forward, but it would be nice to have a facility we could rent out and hold possible wedding receptions,” DeGeeter said. “It’ll attract additional outings for us.
“That’s been the drawback. We’ve lost outings because of our current facility. We think we can up our game with a new facility at the golf course.”
As far as what the city envisions for the clubhouse, the mayor said North Olmsted’s Springvale facility comes to mind.
“The ultimate goal is to be like a Springvale, another municipal course that has a facility making money year-round,” DeGeeter said. “We think an activity center like that will be a good thing for our community.”
In terms of how soon duffers could see a new Ridgewood Golf Course clubhouse, DeGeeter said it’s one step at a time.
“I don’t want to put a timeline on it,” DeGeeter said. “Right now, there’s a good opportunity through Cuyahoga County to apply for demolition funds. The grant would be this year for demo and the next step would be design.
“Clearly, if we don’t have a facility, we’re not going to close the clubhouse. We’ll work out of trailers, which is not unique to the golf course community. We’ll get moving once we have design-engineer work and find funding as well.”
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