Council takes mulligan on Memorial Park Golf Course renovation vote

Proposed renovations to Memorial Park Golf Course that would have brought the prestigious Houston Open golf tournament back to Houston in 2020 have been put on ice for at least a week.

Houston City Council was scheduled to vote Wednesday on the privately funded, $13.5 million makeover that would have closed the course until next fall.

But councilmembers — including Mike Laster, who tabled the vote — expressed concerns about whether the public had been given opportunities to discuss the project and how the disbursement of annual tournament fees would be paid to city departments by the Astros Golf Foundation, which is attempting to bring the Professional Golf Association tournament back to Memorial Park.

Under the proposed agreement, the Memorial Park Conservatory would get $250,000 annually and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department would get $750,000.

Part of Laster’s concerns stem from an ongoing, $200 million renovation to Memorial Park that the Conservancy is overseeing.

“It’s important that we continue to talk about parks equity and parks inequity,” said Laster, who also proposed two amendments to the plan. “And I am concerned here that we’re spending so much money at Memorial Park  that they have a plethora of money.”

“When you have a signature park and your signature park is suddenly cannibalizing individual parks and individual courses, I think it’s within our purview to” speak up, he said.

Others asked that the vote be delayed to allow for more public discussion of the project, including Councilmember Brenda Stardig, who asked that at least one public meeting be held and that “every attempt is made to inform the community about the meeting.”

But time is already ticking for the proposed project: Had it been approved Wednesday, the course would have closed Monday for construction that needs to be completed by October 2019. The Professional Golf Association requires that golf courses be open for at least a year before hosting a major tournament.

Mayor Sylvester Turner, an advocate for the project, said that Houston Astros owner Jim Crane and his partners in the project had requested the council vote in December.

“I would simply ask council not to interfere in a business decision when the project needs to get started,” Turner said. “It needs to get started sooner or later.”

Turner also disputed the notion that the project hadn’t received enough public input.

“This is not a new deal,” he said. “In fact there have been conversations about moving the PGA to Memorial since I’ve been mayor.”