AT&T SVP: We Want A Non-Profit Architect For Our $150,000 Membership Course In Dallas
AT&T Senior Vice President Ron Spears, heading up the Trinity Forest project in South Dallas that hopes to get some government breaks and host the Byron Nelson someday, is insisting that architects and the project manager of the new semi-private club in south Dallas work on a non-profit basis.
Why?
Because they've lumped a First Tee onto the project and the club is a non-profit.
Rudolph Bush in the Dallas Morning News reports the remarks from Spears.
“No one gets to make a profit out of this. That’s been our intent from the beginning in the way we thought about putting it all together.” Spears said. “This is a not-for-profit in every way.”
So sweet hearing a corporate officer preach the gospel of non-profiteering! And...
Senior officials at AT&T and SMU have not yet selected an architect or project manager. But Spears said he is making it clear to anyone who wants to be involved that they can cover their time and costs and nothing else.
“If you don’t buy into the mission of the club, then it may not be the club for you,” he said. “This is not something for a bunch of rich people. We’re trying to do something good for the city of Dallas, for the kids of South Dallas and to help SMU bring a national championship to Dallas.”
And the First Tee of course is at the heart of this plan...
Spears, though, indicated that the club is intended to operate in a more open and inclusive way than many of the exclusive private courses that host professional golf’s most prestigious tournaments.
The inclusion of First Tee of Dallas will help ensure that, he said.
And that’s going to be attractive to architects and project managers who Spears has already spoken to, he said.
“People are looking at it and saying, ‘I really want to get involved in something for a change that is not just a bunch of guys with lots of money building a toy for themselves,’” he said.
And how, with $150,000 memberships for the "semi-private" club, is this not a bunch of guys with money building a toy for themselves?
Thankfully, Spears and friends will pay and pay dearly for this approach.
They won't get an architect who works on the Coore/Crenshaw model of a modest fee while paying for their shaping team which works in lieu of a primary contractor.
Instead, AT&T will get an architect who puts together big pretty plans, announces he'll work for free because his life is devoted to charity as said architect then creates an arrangement with a contractor or requires the use of his preferred contractor, making his money through a side deal. Sadly, this arrangement was all too common in the Roaring 90s and led to costly change orders that only enriched the architects further.
Ultimately, assuming the quality architects demand their very reasonable fee, Trinity Forest will go the way of so many others and leave Dallas with an overbuilt, over-budget, underwhelming mess.
Monday, December 17, 2012 at 09:35 PM
Reader Comments (21)
On other thoughts...
This has future investigation written all over it...and everyone walks.
Nice summation of the corporate America mindset today.
I'm curious, when times are good, should they charge triple?
If the project is about quality, you pay people what they deserve. All of the "minimalists" listed as possible architects are not the types to gouge and they have track records of modestly budgeted projects except maybe Doak's thing in Palm Springs, but that was a silly site.
My hope is the golf course industry AND the general public see right through this and call Spears and those from AT&T out on such a hypocritical proposal.
I'm not defending the stance that this project should be done at cost as I feel that an honest effort should be rewarded with honest compensation, but there are plenty of guys who took advantage when times were good. To make corporate america out to be a villain for taking this stance seems like a double standard.
That said, with so few domestic projects being posted these days I'm sure if they'd just post the RFP out quietly I'm sure they'd find that the laws of supply and demand would have returned results very near "non profit" with a much broader group of quality architects to select from.
Mr. Shackelford: wondering if you are being considered as the architect for this project?
A few years ago, Pete Dye did Wintonberry Hills near Hartford for something like a $1 fee. Given the limitations in budget, he did a great job on the course.
While some of the PGA Tour stops are "barely" charities, the Salesmanship Club had raised enormous somes of money from the Byron Nelson Tourney. With ATT and SMU behind the project, I suspect that they are going to lean hard on everyone involved in the project to "donate" towards the charitable entity. Plus, if the course itself is a non-profit, it may be exempt from local property taxes.
Membership Criteria: If you dontate $150,000 to charity X, you may purchase a membership for $Y.