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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Played 9 holes with my sons on Sunday. Course was packed, range was full, half a dozen people on the chipping green.

In other words- it was fully utilized.[/quote]

That's well and good, but something like an outdoor concert venue could be hosting hundreds or thousands of people in the same space.[/quote]

Do you even know how golf works?

You get a tee time spaced 12 minutes apart from another group. So 4 people tee off and four people tee off 12 minutes later. This goes on all day on the three courses there. So 16 people an hour times three courses, times 13 hours of light, times 365 days. 624 golfers a day. 18,720 a month, 224,640 a year. And that doesn't factor the driving range or the chipping green or the putting green so times that by 2. Lets say half a million people use the facility each year. Weather my dampen those numbers but not much- Hains is always packed. That's a poor use of a dredged island???

But you'd rather have drunk and rowdy concerts there with, at best, an average of 40% attendance? Why?[/quote]

The golf course also takes up over 200 acres of urban land. So, what, 6 people per acre per day? We wouldn't accept those kinds of person-density numbers out of any other commercial recreational activity in the city, especially not one so close to downtown.

A large, multi-purpose concert space would take up a small fraction of the land and almost surely get far more use. Freedom Mortgage Pavilion (formerly BB&T) in Philly fits 25k people on 8 acres. Huntington Bank Pavilion in Chicago fits 15k in 4 acres. Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston is smaller at 5k, but also takes up even less space. Even if attendance were only 40% of capacity, with an average of one show a week (more in summer, less in winter), that's somewhere around 175-200 people per acre per day averaged over the year. Under those assumptions, a Philly-sized venue would attract as many people as the whole golf course using only as much space as 1-2 holes. That means much more tax revenue, a boost to nearby commercial activity, and a boost to the arts and music communities in the region.

With the decline of downtown office districts, cities like DC need to pivot to being urban playgrounds to maintain their tax base and ensure their continued relevance. Golf is not going to get us there; it just uses up way too much valuable space. It also does nothing to make use of the comparative advantages of the city in transit infrastructure and lots of young people. It belongs on the periphery.

Related: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/10/opinion/nyc-office-vacancy-playground-city.html[/quote]

Unless the Feds go back to work at least 3 days a week and are joined by the lobbying industry the tax base of the city is done and DC will become a lawless land that no one would dare visit for a nighttime event.  [/quote]

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