Interesting weekend coming up this Saturday (April 2nd). I was contacted near on a year ago about being a presenter for the National Conference of the American Planning Association. Not even sure how they got my name, but i was thrilled with the prospect. The working title of the program was called: The Evolution of Age-Restricted Communities." I have been chiding the owners of the website 55Places to do an in-depth story about this very subject but with zero success. It's a topic that has been virtually ignored, though the communities have changed dramatically over their 65 year history. The bus tour starts Saturday morning with a stop at the museum and then a quick walk-through at the Fairway and Marinette Centers. We'll drive through SC West and SC Grand and finish the program at Sun City Festival. My co-presenter is with the Pulte Corporation and it should be interesting to see what the future looks like through the eyes of the preeminent company in age restricted living.
It was a very special day last Saturday as we had an opportunity to showcase the Sun City's way of life to 30 some people who have never looked at this lifestyle. Way fun and cool...just way too short a time period. The Del Webb Sun Cities Museum was the starting point, with Fairway and Marinette Centers as the backdrop. From there we drove through Sun City West and stopped at the Sanora Plaza in Sun City Grand. We finished with a short stop at Sun City Festival. It was eye opening to see the evolution from massive communities to smaller more tightly knit developments. Even more important was the move to what Pulte/Webb employees call a "campus" style environment. Obviously there's way more to the evolution, but when we toured Sun City Grand the massive complex was alive with energy and activity. It was easy to see when watching the planners the impact it had on them. And, it's exactly why i feel we've missed the mark in Sun City's evolution. Too bad because we could have been positioning ourselves to have the best of both worlds. More on that later though.
I know it is hard to visualize if you have never seen it. The easiest thing to do is go to Google maps/earth and look at Sun City, Sun City West and Sun City Grand. The latter two each have what the company calls "campus" style rec centers while Sun City has several smaller centers. The Bell Rec Center almost fits the category, but not quite. The greens spaces around the center are non-existent as are the common areas. The theory behind them is to create more of a gathering area for the community, a commons if you will from days gone by. It's exactly why i wanted so badly for us to have bought the Lakes Club. With 38,000 square feet of building space and an incredible setting on Viewpoint lake, we could have developed one of the most beautiful and functional locations anywhere in the country. But alas, with virtually 75% of the PIF dedicated to golf courses over the next 10 years there wasn't the money in the budget to do that. And of course, had we put that before a long range planning committee, it would have been curious to see how people felt.
That would have been a great idea for the less fragmentation if SC. Wow, 75% of the PIF to golf courses is concerning. Might be a need, I don't know, but sounds wrong on many levels.
So here's the counter argument: Since inception, more than 60% of the revenue generated by the PIF has gone to centers and less than 40% to golf. The problem with %'s is we tend to lose sight of what the real needs are; and, if %'s do matter, there's less than 20% of the population who are golfers. Looking to the future is the only way to insure we are prepared for the changes we see coming at us.
