Brauer-Designed Sand Creek Station Under Construction

Residents of the Wichita suburb of Newton are about to get the Jeffrey Brauer-designed municipal golf course they have been anticipating for the last seven years. Meanwhile, Wichita developers J. Russell Communities and Ritchie Associates expect that Sand Creek Station Golf Club will be a perfect cornerstone to the 500-home development they will build out over the next 10 years.

Wadsworth Golf, one of the world's leading golf course contractors, has begun earthmoving for Sand Creek Station, and both the public and private parties involved believe it to be a "win-win" venture. Sand Creek Station will provide the city a golf course and the developers an amenity for their homeowners. Russell and Ritchie, who built the acclaimed Auburn Hills community in Wichita, signed a similar deal with Newton officials. Originally owning 170 acres here, they bought another 280 acres from Newton, then deeded back 180 acres to the city. This left the city with plenty of land on which to build the golf course, while the developers had 270 acres for their Sand Creek neighborhood.

"It will end up costing us nothing," said City Planner Tim Johnson. "The city wouldn't dream of paying for it with any existing revenues, so we have created other revenue streams."

Those new revenues include: $600,000 from the developers; a $2,400-per-lot surcharge to homeowners, totaling $1.32 million and paid over a 20-year period; traditional operational income from greens and golf cart fees, etc.; and the increase in the property taxes generated. City officials also worked with Kansas's congressional delegation to get a $400,000 federal sewer grant to install a gravity-fed supply line from a nearby wastewater-treatment facility to the golf course. The 1 million gallons a day of free water from the plant will save the course an average $200,000 a year, Johnson estimates.

"We project that this $6.2-million project will spur $71 million in development, just in the neighborhoods," said Johnson, "and that is with a conservative average home of $150,000. The $77 million does not include water, sewer and streets. We use special assessments to pay for those. And that will add millions and millions in dollars of employment."

Brauer expects construction to be complete in time to seed the course in early fall, so the facility can open in July 2006. Jay Russell, president of J. Russell Communities, said he will begin construction of the streets and houses, which will range from $150,000 to $250,000, as soon as completion of the golf course is in sight.

Construction of Sand Creek Station follows fresh on the heels of twin accolades for course architect Brauer. His The Quarry at Giants Ridge in Biwabik, Minn., was recently named Best New Upscale Public Course for 2004 by Golf Digest and his The Wilderness at Fortune Bay in Fortune Bay, Minn., was named among GOLF Magazine's Top 10 Best New Places To Play and Travel & Leisure Golf's 10 Best New Public/Resort Courses in America for 2004. Kansas golfers are also familiar with the Brauer-designed Colbert Hills Golf Course at Kansas State University, rated the state's No. 1 public course.

The Arlington, Texas-based Brauer is excited about the prospects at Sand Creek Station, saying that the site reminds him of two of the world's great golf courses – Troon and Prestwick golf clubs in Ayrshire, Scotland – in that two active railroad tracks run through the property and a junction lies in the middle.

While the railroad will provide a buffer between housing and parts of the course, and an occasional railroad train will infuse an atmosphere of old Scotland, Brauer will use the tracks in his strategy. The closer to the tracks that balls are hit, the easier shots golfers will face.

Since the land is billiard-table flat and situated in a flood zone, with a few small wooded areas, Brauer will raise the greens to 100-year-flood levels, the tees to 25-year-flood levels and fairways to 5- or 10-year flood height. The design will be one of nuance, not exaggeration, and will feature a new bunker style for Brauer. Having designed Eagle Bend Golf Course in Lawrence as well as Colbert Hills, he decided on a style different from his other Midwestern work. Sand Creek Station's bunkers will replicate some of the early, simple American sand traps, with steep banks of native grasses rather than Alister Mackenzie-style flash bunkers.

When complete, the layout will stretch to 7,200 yards and play to a par of 72.

Johnson said Spangenberg Phillips Architecture of Wichita is designing 19th-century a clubhouse with a railroad-station motif. Newton will engage a management company to operate the golf course.

Brauer and his firm, Golf Scapes, have designed 45 golf courses and remodeled 90. Besides The Quarry and Legends at Giants Ridge, his renovation of Indian Creek in Carrollton, Texas, and new Legacy Course in Norwalk, Iowa, also secured places on the Golf Digest Best-New lists, adding to his previous Golf Digest design awards, Canterberry in Parker, Colo., and Avocet Course at Wild Wing Plantation in Myrtle Beach, S.C. His Wilderness at Fortune Bay, Colbert Hills and Cowboys Golf Club have also won design awards from other publications. Brauer was president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects during its 50th anniversary year in 1995-96.