Earlier this month, nearly a year after City Park Golf Course in Denver closed to make way for a $40 million course redesign and construction project, its prominent design advisor paid a visit to see how things were progressing and to provide insight on the new 18-hole course which is scheduled to reopen sometime next year.
Hale Irwin teamed with City Park Golf Course architect Todd Schoeder and his Broomfield-based iCon Golf Studio in the course redesign for the site, which will integrate stormwater detention areas to help protect some of the city’s most at-risk neighborhoods from flooding — specifically those north and northwest of the course, which first opened in 1912.
“It is exciting to physically see the progress being made on the City Park Golf Course project,” Irwin said during his Oct. 5 visit, according to a Saunders Construction release. “When completed, this will not only be a place for us all to enjoy now, it will be a place we would encourage our children to come and play golf. This project is a legacy for the future.”
In his Oct. 5 trip to City Park GC, Irwin visited with Schoeder and the rest of the project team at the City of Denver project. (Irwin is pictured, second from right, in a Saunders photo.)
Irwin, a World Golf Hall of Famer who’s won three U.S. Opens and a record 45 tournaments on PGA Tour Champions, has designed — or co-designed — several courses in Colorado, including Indian Peaks Golf Course in Lafayette, the newly renamed University of Denver Golf Club at Highlands Ranch, The Club at Cordillera’s Mountain Course west of Vail and Glacier Club’s Mountain Course (with Schoeder) in Durango. Irwin graduated from Boulder High School and the University of Colorado.
Seeding at City Park Golf Course is over 75 percent complete, according to Saunders, and the city’s October update reports that mowing has begun on the east and north sides of the course. According to the city, the golf-related earthwork is “substantially complete”, while topsoil and irrigation installation is ongoing. Planting of new trees is taking place through the fall, and irrigation — via recycled water — is operational where seeding and trees are in place. The west pond and water-quality channel are complete. Construction on the new clubhouse continues.
(At left is an aerial photo — courtesy of Rocky Mountain Photography — of the project as of this earlier this month.)
The Saunders release said construction at City Park GC “remains on schedule.”
When the redesign project is complete, the site will feature the new 18-hole par-71 golf course, a full-size driving range, a dedicated four-hole course for The First Tee of Denver, a new clubhouse and maintenance facility, stormwater detention, and a reforestation program with a net gain of 500 trees.
